A difficult age

At the age of 40, Billy Joel compiled in lyric form a record of headline events over the course of his first four decades.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray

South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom

Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen

Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev

Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron

Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev

Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac

Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia

Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy

Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania

Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex

JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline

Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide

Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law

Rock and roller cola wars, 

As featured in his US No.1 hit "We didn't start the fire". 


I had to look up the following'

Walter Winchell- reputed to have invented the gossip column
Rosenbergs- couple spying for enemy powere
Panmunjam- Location of truce discussions in the Korean War
Santayana- George, Philosopher dies
Campanella- baseball catcher
Dacron- man made fibre
Starkweather- mass murderer
Edsel- failed car company
Ole Miss- race riot at University of Mississippi
Sally Ride- first American woman in space
Bernie Goetz- shot assailants on the subway

I might have a go at writing lyrics for things that affected /influenced me over the 54 years of my existence.