Fall Out Boy's We Didn't Start The Fire Rocks, But Clone High's Is Better
Fall Out Boy recently attempted to capture the zeitgeist with their updated version of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," replacing Joel's lyrics with some of the greatest historical events of the 34 years since the original song came out (which is available to watch on YouTube). If you're not familiar with the original song, it's basically Billy Joel listing the most significant, memorable, and rhymeable events of his own lifetime. Fall Out Boy decided to do a recreation with more recent events, albeit without Joel's sense of chronological discipline.
However you feel about Fall Out Boy's version of the Billy Joel classic, there's another version of the song that beat them to the punch. It's from the pilot of the reboot of the canceled '00s cartoon "Clone High," in which Principal Scudworth tries to catch the students of Clone High up on the last 20 years.
It's also, naturally, funnier than the Fall Out Boy version, as well. In fact, the "Clone High" version of the song remains popular enough that there are a few "Clone High" fans out there using the hashtag #RelaseTheFullVersion, referencing the purported six hours Scudworth spends singing his extensively detailed rendition of the song without the time-skipping flash-forward interrupting him. But for now, you'll have to be content with the 39 seconds of re-education you can get from the available version of the song.
Clone High's version has a bit more bite than Fall Out Boy's
Fall Out Boy's "We Didn't Start the Fire" has its own share of eyebrow-raising lyrical choices (rhyming "George Floyd" with "Metroid" is unlikely to win any year-end awards for good taste), but the "Clone High" version goes a little further in the edge department — with more humorous intent. The standout couplet, at least in the brief portion of the song we see on the show, is probably "Marvel movies, Taylor Swift/Bill Cosby, Google it," which is a pretty clever solution to the question of how to incorporate the most recent chapter of Cosby's life through song.
Now, Billy Joel fans and list-song enthusiasts can debate the merits of both the Fall Out Boy and "Clone High" versions of "We Didn't Start the Fire." Billy Joel himself doesn't appear to have weighed in on either one, but maybe someone will ask him about it soon so the question can be settled once and for all. Billy Joel cover wars, I can't take it anymore!