It’s odd how the memory of a song can be irrelevant to the song. Billy Joel’s we didn’t start the fire reminds me of two things, the first one being watching The Wonder Years both in English (on cable tv) and dubbed to Spanish (on aerial tv). You’d get sometimes both episodes the same day, at different times, so I could compare the versions in both languages and even learning how to translate a few words. I learnt english from both TV and MAD magazine, so if sometimes my humour comes off as weird, blame them!

The second memory galvanised to this song is a supermarket called Gran Bazar, now a gormless Walmart. Saturday was the day for supermarket shopping and we left after the saturday morning cartoons finished. The last block was always classic Warner Bros Looney Tunes, which my dad was fond of (except for tweety, fuck that bird!)

Gran Bazar was a place my dad liked, because the book section sometimes had sci fi books from Bruguera Editors, a Spanish distributor specialising in Sci Fi and Fantasy. The book section sometimes had Calvin & Hobbes, Asterix and Obelix, and Mortadelo and Filemón, so you could get a free book from dad if you helped carrying the shopping. The music section sometimes had Deutsche Phonogramme cds for cheap and my dad made quite a collection there.

For a time, the shopping trolleys had to levels and I somehow managed to fit on the lower basket. My dad would stroll around with me while my mom checked fruit and veg. For two years or so, Gran Bazar had hanging televisions playing videos. It was a mish mash of glam, pop, and the lightest of rap songs (Vanilla Ice or MC Hammer). Billy Joel’s we didn’t start the fire was heavy on rotation too, and eventually my dad bought me the cd for my birthday. He like Billy Joel’s voice, and both my mom and he were fond of New York State of Mind and Just the way you are.

This song gets a lot of flak, but I’m fond of it. I love history, so this is right up my alley. It’s not my fave song off Storm Front, that’s a stiff competition between I go to extremes, The downeaster Alexa and Leningrad. A lot of the history tidbits matched with what I watched on The Wonder Years, so I guess that combination was the right time, the right place. I guess I saw myself like Kevin Arnold in a way, but ’89 and ’69 are very, very different points in human history.

Thanks dad. Thanks mom. Miss ya both.

-Sam J. Valdés López