"Five Minutes of Fire": Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion

<v Speaker 1>This is Jeff Johnson from Cincinnati, Ohio, and I want
<v Speaker 1>my Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcasts.
<v Speaker 2>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely you Can't
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious Podcast Special Edition Five Minutes of Fire. We
<v Speaker 2>are here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start
<v Speaker 2>the Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes
<v Speaker 2>at a time, which is about to link for the song,
<v Speaker 2>so it works out kind of nicely. So please join
<v Speaker 2>us as we dive into some new lyrics today.
<v Speaker 1>All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
<v Speaker 1>going to be covering today. Dylan Berlin, bave pigs, invasion,
<v Speaker 1>Dylan Berlin.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Jason, what can you tell me about Dylan?
<v Speaker 1>Bob Dylan is who we're talking about today. Mister Robert
<v Speaker 1>Allen Zimmerman was that he was born as in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>forty one in Duluth, Minnesota. He's an American songwriter and singer.
<v Speaker 1>Some say he's the best songwriter to ever live. Moved
<v Speaker 1>to New York City in nineteen sixty one. He signed
<v Speaker 1>with Columbia Records pretty quickly. His first album didn't do much,
<v Speaker 1>but his second album, The Free Will and Bob Dylan
<v Speaker 1>album was very well received and gave us a song
<v Speaker 1>Lowing in the Wind. He became a major figure in
<v Speaker 1>the civil rights movement. On the album Highway sixty one
<v Speaker 1>Revisited in July nineteen sixty five, he came out with
<v Speaker 1>the song like a Rolling Stone. In July of nineteen
<v Speaker 1>sixty six. He also had a motorcycle accident where he
<v Speaker 1>broke his neck. Starred in the nineteen seventy three movie
<v Speaker 1>Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, from which we get
<v Speaker 1>the song Knocking on Heaven's Door. In the late seventies,
<v Speaker 1>he converted to Christianity and released several albums. In nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty five, He's sang on We Are the World. In
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty eight, he co founded the Traveling Wheelberry's and
<v Speaker 1>is widely believed to be one of the twentieth century's
<v Speaker 1>most influential personalities. Okay, do tell me about Terry Nunn
<v Speaker 1>and Berlin.
<v Speaker 3>Different.
<v Speaker 2>This is happening about the real bout. Oh sorry, okay, yes, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So when I was in sixth grade, the title of
<v Speaker 2>my US History report was Berlin the Divided Country, Because
<v Speaker 2>when I was in sixth grade, the Berlin Wall was
<v Speaker 2>still in existence. So after World War iiO Berlin was
<v Speaker 2>divided up among the Allied powers. The ones that got
<v Speaker 2>East Berlin were the Soviets. After the first fifteen or
<v Speaker 2>so years of the Cold War, there were several folks
<v Speaker 2>in East Berlin that decided they didn't like the Soviet
<v Speaker 2>lifestyle so much. As a matter of fact, three point
<v Speaker 2>five million of them defected from East Berlin over into
<v Speaker 2>West Berlin. And so the Soviets decided, you know what,
<v Speaker 2>they need protection from this influence, and so we're going
<v Speaker 2>to put up a wall. And so on August thirteenth,
<v Speaker 2>nineteen sixty one, they started construction on the Berlin Wall
<v Speaker 2>to quote unquote protected citizens, but everyone knew it was
<v Speaker 2>to keep them from defecting. That wall remained there until
<v Speaker 2>just a couple short months after the release of the song.
<v Speaker 2>We didn't start the fire. It's incredible and was taken
<v Speaker 2>down November ninth, nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>Our buddy Vanilla and Plexico said we could do it
<v Speaker 1>entire We didn't start the fire song just on events
<v Speaker 1>of nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 2>And he's not wrong. Okay, Jason, tell me about the
<v Speaker 2>Baya Pigs invasion.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, April of nineteen sixty one, more than one thousand
<v Speaker 1>Cuban exiles stormed the beaches of the Baya Pigs in
<v Speaker 1>Cuba to launch a revolt against Fidel Castro. Castro had
<v Speaker 1>risen to power in the nineteen fifties. On New Year's
<v Speaker 1>Day nineteen fifty nine, Castro invaded Havana, forcing US backed
<v Speaker 1>Batista to flee. Castro declared himself Prime Minister and signed
<v Speaker 1>agreements to buy oil from Russia. This did not sit
<v Speaker 1>well with the United States, so the US severed all
<v Speaker 1>ties with Cuba. He soon declared himself communist and seized
<v Speaker 1>all US assets in Cuba. So Eisenhower came up with
<v Speaker 1>a plan to train Cuban refugees as freedom fighters. However,
<v Speaker 1>there were several spies in those bands of freedom fighters.
<v Speaker 1>Fast forward a bit to John F. Kennedy. He decides
<v Speaker 1>to move on an invasion and invade Trinidad, which is
<v Speaker 1>an area of Cuba, but at the last second he
<v Speaker 1>switches to the Bay of Pigs, which is interesting because
<v Speaker 1>the area around the bay swampy, making fighting very difficult.
<v Speaker 1>This group of freedom fighters was met by twenty thousand
<v Speaker 1>Cuban troops. Oh gosh, by April nineteenth, the US sends
<v Speaker 1>in air support, but it's a total failure. It's a
<v Speaker 1>complete embarrassment for Kennedy and it actually emboldens Castro and
<v Speaker 1>the USSR. These events pushed us even closer to World
<v Speaker 1>War three.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, guys, that does it for today's episode. Join us
<v Speaker 2>next time for five minutes of fire.
<v Speaker 3>Hey, check it out. There's a brand new podcast on
<v Speaker 3>the way exploring the discographies of the Beatles and the
<v Speaker 3>Beach Boys.
<v Speaker 4>It's called Apples and Oranges and it lodges on February seventh.
<v Speaker 3>We will be matching albums against each other in a
<v Speaker 3>one v one format, discussing every single track and then
<v Speaker 3>giving our verdict on which album is better.
<v Speaker 4>Pet Sounds versus Revolving Sergeant Pepper versus Smile.
<v Speaker 3>Wouldn't it be nice if most people knew how well
<v Speaker 3>the Beach Boys actually held up against the Fab Four.
<v Speaker 4>Both bands inspired each other to keep pushing the boundaries
<v Speaker 4>of what was possible in pop music here, there, and everywhere, and.
<v Speaker 3>What we got were some of the greatest albums of
<v Speaker 3>all time.
<v Speaker 4>Awesommer Long versus A Hard Day's Night, Rivers Sol versus
<v Speaker 4>The Beach boys today.
<v Speaker 3>So let's come together for some fun, fun fun and
<v Speaker 3>help me Ronda get this podcast off the ground, and
<v Speaker 3>we'll sure appreciate you being around. On February seventh, wherever
<v Speaker 3>you find your podcast
<v Speaker 4>That's Apples and Oranges February seven,