A New York City area comedian is taking a look back at this year of quarantine based on a popular tune that New Yorkers know and love.
On March 1, Paul Costabile posted his new parody, “We Didn’t Start The Virus,” which recaps the year in quarantine starting with the events starting in March 2020. As the title suggests, the parody is based off of the popular Billy Joel hit, “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”
“If you’re going to look back on 2020, let’s look back in song,” said Costabile. “Most of the news sucks, but we are all sharing it, so why not share it with a familiar song? Billy Joel’s song was him basically yelling about the pop culture news of the last few decades, if only he knew then.”
After a friend suggested that he make a parody based on the song, Costabile had originally planned to make a weekly parody based on “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” However, the idea was placed on the backburner and looking back, Costabile felt the idea could have been redundant.
Once the anniversary of one year in quarantine grew closer, Costabile thought it would be perfect to put together this parody. He started to dive into the news that occurred over the past year, researching to find what the best bits would be to include in his parody.
“I started looking into the news. It was labor-intensive and got overwhelmed. I ended up on a webpage with Trump coronavirus quotes and the dates,” said Costabile. “I did a week of research to see what I wanted to include. I knew that the video couldn’t be too long, so I had to find what is most important. I tried to have a feel good balance, if I had used way too much deep, deep stuff and the nitty-gritty of headlines, it would have been 30 minutes long.”
Costabile hopes that those who decide to watch his new parody can look back at 2020, a year that was filled with pain and turmoil, with a little bit of joy and happiness.
“I want to make the world kinda smile a little bit as we all live in this fear and hopefully it’s getting better. I want people to think of it and have a chuckle,” said Costabile. “I think we can’t avoid the news and in facing how scary the world is, here’s a refreshing 2 minutes reflecting on the craziest year and feel okay about it. I think Billy Joel will do that. Just to highlight everything in the past year of our lives in a bearable way.”
Watch the parody below. The video is also available on Costabile’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles.
