Brigitte Bardot's Passing Leaves Just Three Survivors from Billy Joel's Iconic Hit "We Didn't Start The Fire"

Table of Contents

1. Living Names in "We Didn't Start the Fire"
2. Famous References in the Song
3. Musical Timeline
4. Bernie Goetz and His Controversy
5. Current Status of the Artists Mentioned

The number of living individuals mentioned in Billy Joel’s "We Didn’t Start the Fire" has dwindled to an astonishing three.

Three decades after this iconic song topped charts worldwide, most of its referenced figures are no longer with us.

Out of the 59 individuals mentioned in the 1989 mega-hit, only rock 'n' roll singer Chubby Checker and “subway vigilante” Bernie Goetz remain alive.

This somber yet intriguing fact has been circulating on social media following the announcement made on Sunday.

One astonished fan remarked: “This is how I discover Chubby Checker is still alive.”

Another commented: “This is the kind of trivial knowledge I’ll be unable to resist sharing at the next dinner party.”

Billy’s catchy anthem serves as a rapid-fire history lesson.

It runs through significant headlines and pop culture moments in strict chronological order, starting from the year of Billy Joel's birth in 1949 and racing toward the late 1980s.

One of the song's most packed lines – “Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev” – references 1956, the year the iconic French actress gained worldwide fame in "And God Created Woman."

It also acknowledges the Hungarian Revolution in Budapest, the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, and Nikita Khrushchev’s ascent to power in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death.

Music also weaves through the song as a secondary timeline.

Chart-topping Billy, now 79, kicks things off with "Cry" singer Johnnie Ray in 1949, one of the first modern pop stars signed to a major label.

He quickly follows with Bill Haley & His Comets, whose "Rock Around the Clock" propelled rock ’n’ roll into overdrive.

Buddy Holly appears in 1955, marking the tragedy of "The Day the Music Died" in 1959, followed by Chubby Checker’s dance sensation in 1960.

Bob Dylan makes an appearance in 1961 as pop music shifts sharply toward protest and social change.

By the time Joel reaches the mid-to-late 1960s, it’s all about Beatlemania and Woodstock.

Bernie Goetz is mentioned after he became infamous in 1984 for shooting four Black men on a train in New York after they allegedly demanded money.

One of the victims was left brain damaged and paralyzed, and the shooting became emblematic of the deep racial divide in the city.

Goetz turned himself in to police nine days later and was dubbed the “subway vigilante” by local media.

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