Every week. All year. Recapping and discussing the news by forcing ourselves to write it into the lyrical format of Billy Joel's 1989 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire." With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski.
Episodes
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
Boxing! Grokking! Things that make us mad! We give a LOT of lyrical real estate to the Picasso raffle lady. We revisit the question "WHAT IS NEWS?" and we also tease a new format for next week...
Highlights: "Marciano," "British Politician Sex," Gilgamesh tablet returned from the Hobby Lobby Museum, Doja Cat saying "gang sunk that dunker"
Read the rest of this entry »Friday May 22, 2020
Friday May 22, 2020
What are those burning photos? Who is the baby? Why isn't Billy warning them?? Does the video predict THE FUTURE??? Bra burning! Pre-internet memes! Lucille Ball impersonations! Making up for things that aren't in the song! So many toys! Jack Ruby! The Joel-centric bias! The song is NOT in order!
We discuss the 1989 music video for "We Didn't Start the Fire," directed by Mark Blum.
Read the rest of this entry »Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
Baseball! Sh*tty people resurfacing in the news! Playing the "meta game!" How many people in this song are still alive in 2020??
Highlights: Mickey Mantle, Designated Hitters in the National League, Bernie Goetz, Shkreli/Goetz/Manafort/Kabuga
Read the rest of this entry »Monday May 11, 2020
Monday May 11, 2020
The word "slog" returns! What do Billy Joel and Puck from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" have in common? What about Giannis Antetokounmpo and George Stephanopoulos? Sam has no choice but to stan Colombo! Is an octameter just two tetrameters?
Highlights: Cannabis laws, "Angels in Disguise," British Beatlemania, Little Rock
Monday May 04, 2020
Monday May 04, 2020
Trochaic Octameter! The "We Didn't Start the Fire" music video! The Google News Archive! Rib injury! Disco ball batteries!
Highlights: Missing great white sharks, Sudan bans genital mutilation, Ole Miss, England's got a new Queen
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
We are getting INTO IT. Lowercase news words. Leslie Jamison! A unified theory of Billy Joel bias! Other songs?? Nobel Laureates! "Next Stop Greenwich Village!"
Highlights: Pasternak, Dylan, Mark Warner's tuna melt, Travis Scott's Fortnite concert
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Long toast! The rules of the song! Syllables! Our favorite TikTok account! How do you say "no-go" in French? And we can't take "I can't take it anymore" anymore!
Highlights: Princess Grace, Chubby Checker, Poland protests, Chess upset
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
We both had a lot to say this week. We discuss the impact of c*****v***s, the lyrical artistry of B***y J**l, toying with the chronological order, syllable stress, and the camera toilet.
Highlights: Payola, Dacron, Cavallari Bahamas drama, Yemen Ceasefire
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
We are... really enjoying this now? This episode was recorded as a video- we're gonna keep doing that. We talk about Nixon showing up in the song twice, which makes us feel better about our repeats. Also, we are filled with terror to learn that the song is coming from inside the news.
Highlights: Studebaker, Stranger in a Strange Land, FDA blood donor ban, Irish PM practices medicine
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Our first remotely recorded episode! The show was driving us insane- now it might be keeping us sane??? We discuss Cohen brothers spoilers, how we are breaking through the constant bad news, and we use the word "horny" a LOT.
Highlights: Peyton Place, The King and I, Ikaria Warioota, the Kinkularity
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
From the first full week of NYC quarantine. A lot of news; none of it wanted to fit in the song structure this week. But it got there.
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
The week everything changed. Jerzy flies solo (from a few weeks in the future) to recap the events and news that we missed while the global Coronavirus pandemic took over our lives.
No highlights this week, just the song and a quick recap.
Sunday Apr 12, 2020
Sunday Apr 12, 2020
We do this for the EIGHTH time. We keep getting better at it. There's a lot of news to cover. Sam was away on vacation but still could not escape this project.
Highlights: "Vaccine," "Heavy metal suicide," Bob's Red Mill, Wuhan students review-bomb homework app, and "grocs?"
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
We test out the new format. We like it. Also: confronting the songwriter's OBVIOUS Brooklyn Dodgers bias and getting even deeper into how the song works.
Our Highlights this week: Syngman Rhee, Roy Campanella, WhatsApp/Signal, BBC Africa Eye's "Sex for Grades" documentary expose.
With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Episode 6: We figure some stuff out! Highlights: Where are we getting our news? Jerzy pitches Sam on a new format, the Renegade dance, Yemen, and THE PIANO MAN.
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
This week, we try out our new, streamlined approach. It goes well. We didn't hate doing it this week.
With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski.
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
What IS news? What happened to the "World's Worst Cat?" What if this song had been written during World War II? Why are we doing this?? We also get more efficient with our news gathering and our method of writing the final verse.
With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski.
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
We recap and discuss the week's news by forcing ourselves to write it into the lyrical format of a hit song from 1989. Every week.
With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski.
Episode 3... was a slog. We discuss how to reduce major events into rhymes- and how we feel about that. We also have a VERY hard time writing the fifth verse this week.
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
We recap and discuss the week's news by forcing ourselves to write it into the lyrical format of a hit song from 1989.
With Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski.
Episode 2 covers January 13-19, 2020. We discuss what it was like to cover our first 7-day week, whether we are already getting sick of this, and the finer points of searching the Google News tab.
Tuesday Apr 07, 2020
Tuesday Apr 07, 2020
We recap and discuss the week's news by forcing ourselves to write it into the lyrical format of a hit song from 1989.
"Week Didn't Start" with Sam Corbin and Jerzy Gwiazdowski
First episode, covering January 1-12, 2020.