Speaker 1: Hello everybody, This is Caleb Grays from Norman, Oklahoma, and
you are listening to the greatest podcast of all time.
Speaker 2: I'm spiking the football here. It's the Sureley You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the
Surely You Can't Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes
of Fire. We are here talking about the lyrics of
We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering
only five minutes at a time, which is about the
link of the song, so it works out kind of nicely.
So please join us as we dive into some new
lyrics today.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
going to be covering today.
Speaker 2: Punk rock, Begon, Reagan, Palestine.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about punk rock.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the first one. I'm like, oh, I
remember that. So punk rock started in the mid seventies.
You had these proto punk bands like MC five, who
had actually gotten record labels to endorse them, but then
like their chance to their concerts include MFR, which got
them in a lot of trouble. But they were a
big inspiration for other bands who were like, we're tired
of the way music is f the establishment f thisf that.
And so then you get this club in New York
City that you probably heard of called CBGB's. You know
what CBGB stands for, I do not. It stands for
Country Bluegrass Blues. What. Yeah, So Hilly Crystal started the
club in nineteen seventy three and his only rule was
you had to play your own original music. That place
and Max's Kansas City. Somehow with all of that though,
end up being the two places that the punk rockers,
although they weren't really calling themselves that at this point,
started to do stuff. You of course, in New York
City have the Ramones. They made their debut performance at
CBGB's in nineteen seventy four. Within a few months, they
had done seventy four sets rise each of the sets
was only seventeen minutes long, and they had a group
that would play with them that was formed by Richard Hell.
Group was called Television. Television actually helped them build the
stage that they had at CBGB's like hammers and nails,
oh wow. And so Television and the Ramones were not
super popular in the US, but were a big influence
on UK bands. And so you had guys like Iggy
Pop and the Stooges in the Velvet underground. So what
was happening was the guys in New York that were
into different music were listening to those guys, and then
the guys in the UK were listening to the Ramones
and television, and they were like feeding off of each other, right,
Like they weren't as popular in their home place as
they were across the pond. Richard Hell was the guy
who kind of started with the ripped T shirts and
aggressive haircuts. That was really just probably because he couldn't
afford it, you know. He came onto the stage one
night with clothes pins holding his clothes together, and some
guy from the UK was like, yeah, screw this fashion
industry thing, and it was really just probably to keep
his clothes from falling off. Wow, but that's how you
get safety pins and clothes For the punk scene. It's
just a feeding frenzy off of each other in this
very underground sea. But then nineteen seventy six there is
this tipping point and suddenly the world becomes aware of
punk music and it builds and builds, and then in
nineteen seventy eight, Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols spits
on a guy and it becomes a worldwide phenomena. Tell
me about Began, okay.
Speaker 1: Menachem Began was born in nineteen thirteen in modern day Belarus,
but in nineteen thirty nine the Nazis murdered his father.
Now he was a Jewish Man, so in nineteen forty
three he decided he's going to move to Palestine. Began
wanted to force the British out of Palestine. He was
on wanted posters. This guy was like seen as a
terrorist by the British government.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He became the leader of the Lionised military group urgon
the British left, turning Palestine over to the UN, who
then declared in nineteen forty seven this to be the
Jewish state of Israel. In nineteen seventy seven, Began was
elected Prime Minister of Israel. In nineteen seventy nine, he
led the Egypt Israel peace Treaty with Egyptian President Onwar Sadat.
Now this is the first time that an Arab country
recognized Israel. In nineteen eighty one, Saddam Hussein threatened Israel
and was building a nuclear reactor. Began with the Israeli
Air Force took it out, knock him began, passed away
March third, nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jason, can you tell me who was president in
nineteen eighty five? Ronald Reagan, the actor. Okay, this is,
of course Ronald Reagan, the face of politics for the
nineteen eighties. He was born in February nineteen eleven to
Jack Reagan and Nellie Wilson now Willie Nelson now his
dad Jack was a populist Democrat, and as it turns out, Reagan,
despite the fact what we know about him in our
history experience with him, he actually tried to join the
Communist Party whenever he was what whenever he was a
young man, but they wouldn't let him in because they
thought he was quote unquote too dim. And so obviously
his politics changed over time, and in nineteen eighty he
beat the incumbent Jimmy Carter. This was during the hostage crisis,
and he said, I'm going to come in and I'm
going to fix this, and he did, and he was
probably one of the most popular at the time presidents
in history. He was in office from January twentieth, nineteen
eighty one to January twentieth nineteen eighty nine. Okay, tell
me about Palestine.
Speaker 1: The Palestine Liberation Organization that is internationally known as the
Official Representative of the Palestinian People was founded in nineteen
sixty four and initially sought to establish an Arab state
over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating
the elimination of the state of Israel. In March nineteen
seventy seven, Jimmy Carter spoke of a need for the
Palestinian homeland and wanted Palestine to participate in the peace process.
Israel rejected the idea of the PLO participating in peace talks,
and that battle still rages on today.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, that does it for today's episode. Join us
next time for five minutes of fire.