Quotulatiousness

December 13, 2024

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Bardcore | Medieval/Renaissance Style Cover)

Filed under: Europe, History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Hildegard von Blingin’
Published Jul 16, 2024

There are many covers of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” that adapt it to different times, but we wanted to give it the bardcore treatment. *Unlike the original, the list is not chronological, and jumps around in time a lot. It very loosely spans from around 400 to 1600, and is from a rather Eurocentric point of view. Thank you to my brother, Friar Funk, for devising the lyrics and providing the majority of the vocals. Many thanks as well to his new wife and our dad for joining us in the chorus at the end.

The image of the monk is from MS Bodleian 602. A scribe at his desk © The Bodleian Libraries Oxford
There are simply too many other images to credit here, but the majority are public domain from wiki media.

Lyrics:

    Eleanor of Aquitaine,
    Charles the 6th
    Hath gone insane
    Reconquista
    Geoffrey Chaucer,
    Michelangelo

    Marco Polo,
    Magna Carta
    Christian Schism
    Siege of Acre,
    Byzantine iconoclasm
    Guillaume de Machaut

    We did not start the fire
    It was always burning as the world was turning
    We did not start the fire
    No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it

    Charlemagne,
    Alfred
    Anne Boleyn
    Without a head

    Few things
    Here to read
    But the Nibelungenlied

    Castile with
    Aragon
    Second pope in Avignon

    Novgorod,
    Chinggis Khan
    Beowulf, Decameron

    CHORUS

    Henry Tudor,
    Saladin
    Richard and the Winter King

    Lindisfarne,
    Norse raids
    Children on crusade

    Rome gone,
    Castillon
    Mona Lisa,
    King John
    Kalmar Union,
    Hanseatic trade.

    Kipchaks
    Horseback
    Constantinople sacked
    Song of Roland,
    Silk demand,
    Wallachia,
    Holy Land

    Grunwald,
    Manzikert,
    Barbarossa,
    Golden Spurs

    Joan of Arc,
    Patriarch
    Battle of Lepanto!

    CHORUS

    Canterbury,
    Nikephoros
    Alchemy,
    Matthias Corvinus
    Khan Krum,
    Sicily
    Normans land in Italy

    Hippodrome,
    Notre Dame
    Timur in Afghanistan
    Double prince homicide
    Seven papal regicides

    Edinburgh,
    Malta
    Wenceslaus,
    Bohemia

    Hunedoara stronghold
    Mansa Musa’s got gold
    Ghazi,
    Gutenberg
    Baghdad and Mosul burn

    Gunpowder twofold
    Panic, it’s the Mongols!

    CHORUS

    Antioch,
    Sassanids
    Spaniards in a strange land
    Fatimids,
    El Cid
    Ottoman invasion

    Rashidun Arabia
    Christian relicmania
    Hussites,
    Swiss pikes
    Executing Templar Knights

    Lichtenauer,
    Skanderbeg
    Holding off the Pechenegs
    Black plague, here to stay
    What else do I dare to say?

    CHORUS

    Nicaea,
    Troubadours
    William Wallace torn in four
    Falkirk
    Glasswork
    Stamford Bridge,
    Göktürks

    3 year Famine,
    Medicine
    Barons oust a sovereign
    Carrouges versus Jacques le Gris
    Carracks sail across the sea

    Walpurgis Fechtbuch
    Arslan and the Seljuks
    Clontarf,
    Lombards
    Habsburgs,
    Bannockburn

    Church denied by Thomas More
    Montezuma is no more
    Curse this German Peasants’ War
    I can’t take it anymore!

    We did not start the fire
    It was always burning as the world was turning
    We did not start the fire
    But when we are gone, it shall still burn on and on and on
    We did not start the fire
    It was always burning as the world was turning
    We did not start the fire
    No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it

Related posts:

  1. “Jolene” (Bardcore | Medieval Style)
  2. “House of the Rising Sun” – Hildegard von Blingin’ & Algal the Bard (Bardcore | Medieval Style)
  3. Metallica – “Nothing Else Matters” – Medieval Style – Bardcore

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