In 1989 famous music artist Billy Joel released a song called “we didn’t start the fire”. The lyrics include brief, rapid fire, and more than 100 headliners from 1949 to 1989. The song grew very popular as millions listened to it. The song was nominated for the Grammy award for record of the year, it was also a number 1 hit in the US. Billy Joel got the idea for the song when he had just turned 40. He was having a conversations with his friend who had just turned 21, his friend had said “it’s a terrible time to be 21!” Joel replied by saying “ya I remember when I was 21 and we had Vietnam!”. Joel wanted to let the people know the world has been like this forever. Joel loved history, he actually wanted to be a history teacher.  In our class we have used this song as a history lesson. Here is the song so you can have a listen yourself: 

In class we listened to the song and we got to choose any of the headliners from the song and do research on the topic and how it changed the world. The topic I chose was heavy metal. Heavy metal has been a huge part of my life as my parents both listened to it. My dad has been to a lot of heavy metal concerts since he was teenager, Metallica, Judas Priest, iron maiden, Rob Zombie, Skid Row, Alice cooper, Headstones, Van Halen, Metal Church, Black Sabbath. When I was 9 years old my dad took me to and AC/DC concert and since than I’ve become a fan. 2 years ago I went too iron maiden and just recently went to Metallica. When I saw this topic I really wanted to look more into heavy metal and how it has changed the world.

Heavy metal originated in the late sixties from bands like black sabbath and led zeppelin. It had started in England and then had spread to places like Sweden, Norway, and the United States. But by the late 80s and early 90s heavy metal became a worldwide sensation. Heavy metal had something that rock and roll didn’t have at that time. Heavy metal was about the emotion and passion and not caring about anything, but most importantly it had the energy. The energy is what made heavy metal what it is today. Metal helped change the world by making people seem rebellious. I find the main point of metal and what they talk about in their lyrics is a lot about Satan. To religious people this kind of music was looked down upon, this creating the rebel side of the music. I made a photo collage of heavy metal albums, shows, and fans compared to rock and roll to show the difference. 

 

Heavy metal still spoke with a message. Even though most of heavy metal talk about death and Satan, they use a lot of it as metaphors and when really listening to the lyrics you can understand what they are talking about. One of my favourite songs is “War Pigs” by black sabbath, which was realeased in 1970, and when listening to the lyrics you can tell just what they are talking about. 

[Verse 1]
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh, Lord, yeah!

[Verse 2]
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor! Yeah!
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’till their judgement day comes, yeah!

[Verse 3]
Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where their bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of god has struck the hour
Day of judgement, god is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
Oh, Lord, yeah!

The bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler, who criticizes the Vietnam War and the politicians responsible. The last verse really stands out to me because I could never vision seeing someone like the Beatles singing one of those verses. It really shows how metal pushes the boundaries by talking about Satan laughing at god. Geezer Butler had an interview to talk about the song and it is quite interesting the things he says: 

“Walpurgis is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan. It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was [about] evil. So I was saying “generals gathered in the masses / just like witches at black masses” to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought ‘Walpurgis’ sounded too Satanic. And that’s when we turned it into ‘War Pigs’. But we didn’t change the lyrics, because they were already finished.”