The song means that all the world today were not caused by our generation. all the events in history led to what the world is today. all his history references basically show how the world go to where it is today. Also that we didn't start all the problems but we do give the fire more. But we try to fight. What did Billy Joel mean when he wrote "we didn't start the fire" This song is a synonym saying that we are not the reason for all the problems, his point of view in this song is that the currently older generation did not "light" the problems in the world, but instead "tried to fight em". In this song he names people, places, and events that affected the United States. Harry S Truman became U.S. President when President Roosevelt died in 1945. He was responsible for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan and ending World War II. Truman initiated the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the war. Doris Day was born in 1924. She started singing and touring with the Les Brown Band at age 16. She made her first movie in 1948 and soon became a popular movie star and singer. Red China entered the Korean War in the 1950s, when it looked like the U.N. forces would defeat Communist North Korea. South Pacific was a highly popular Broadway musical and hit movie. Walter Winchell was a top gossip reporter, whose newspaper column and radio show could make or break a celebrity. This gives people a good overview of what happened during that time period.

in the song lyrics Billy Joel was sing about television, during the cold war there was no color in T.V. and he was singing about the bomb. the meaning of we didn't start the fire mean its like we didn't start the fight first. but the time has change during the cold war everything was different from time right now.