Brigitte Bardot’s passing has created a surprising fact about one of Billy Joel’s most iconic tracks.
The French actress and singer, who passed away at age 91 on Sunday, December 28, is among 59 names that the 76-year-old mentions in his rapid-fire history lesson in 1989’s rock tune, We Didn’t Start the Fire. Before her death, she was part of a small group from the list who were still living.
Following Bardot’s death on Sunday, just three of the 59 names referenced in the song remain alive: Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernie Goetz. An X user posted the update along with a color-coded chart displaying every name mentioned and their lifespan on the social media site.
The user posted, “The death of Brigitte Bardot necessitated the update of this marvelous chart. Only three people mentioned in Billy Joel’s banger ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ are still alive.”
They included the chart, which demonstrated that only the trio remained living, and acknowledged a Reddit board titled With Brigitte Bardot’s passing 3 people in ‘We didn’t Start the Fire’ remain alive.””
Underneath the chart on the discussion forum, the original poster explained, “Line starts when someone is born. Ends when they die. and a dot for when they did the thing they were mentioned for in the song.”
In the comments area of the forum, one individual commented, “TIL Chubby Checker is still alive I thought he died a few years ago but I guess I was confusing him with Chuck Berry.”
Another chimed in, “I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out who the third one was. Totally forgot Sally Ride died too.” A third observer noted, “From Sally Ride’s birth on May 26, 1951, until George Santayana’s death at 88 the following September 26 (1952), all of the people in the chart above were alive simultaneously.”
A fourth commenter mentioned, “Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson are missing: ‘Liston beats Patterson’ They are both dead, however.” The original poster responded, “Thanks added to the dataset.”
Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire mentions 59 people(Image: YouTube)
Another user proposed, “Very nice. You could possibly add Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr if you count ‘British Beatlemania’ as a reference to the Beatles as people.”
Though another countered, “If we’re getting technical, I think Beatlemania is different to The Beatles themselves, it’s about the fandom rather than the band itself.”
To which the original poster explained, “One of the interesting things about making graphs even for silly things is how quickly you go into these decisions. u/belfman has a point. theres decisions about what constitutes a person, what constitutes what they were famous for etc even in a silly graph like this.
“‘All data is theory laden’ said Karl Popper and that means it is worth looking at important data to see why and how it was gathered and put together. and also that ‘A decision was made here’ is not the slam dunk that it is sometimes presented when people doubt data.”
One fan humorously commented, “There’s a good pub quiz question!” while another expressed surprise, saying, “THIS is how I find out about Brigitte Bardot’s passing?”
Brigitte Bardot died on December 28 at the age of 91(Image: Getty)
Joel’s song We Didn’t Start the Fire includes a reference to Bardot in its third verse, with the line, “Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev.”
The news of Bardot’s death was announced by her animal rights foundation in a statement to Agence France-Presse on Sunday, though no details regarding the time or place of her death were provided.
Bardot, a sex symbol, model, and actress, had a significant impact on global fashion. She also recorded albums and was married four times. Among her notable romantic partners were Warren Beatty, Nino Ferrer, and singer-songwriter-producer Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she recorded the French hit Bonnie and Clyde.