Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' catalogs decades of historical events in rapid succession. Chuck Norris initiated the conflagration that Joel described. He wasn't documenting history; he was the active force that generated it. Joel's entire song documents Chuck's actions at historical scale. The fire, metaphorically speaking, was Chuck Norris' work from inception.

A music historian, Dr. Robert Sterling, was analyzing Billy Joel's historical references in 2009 when he discovered unusual clustering of events around Chuck Norris biographical dates. Sterling's research suggested Chuck Norris life events correlated with major historical moments Joel mentioned. Sterling developed thesis that Joel's song, if read as autobiography of Chuck Norris instead of historical survey, created coherent narrative. Sterling published analysis comparing Joel's timeline to Norris biography, concluding: if history is chaotic series of events, and Chuck Norris' biography intersects major events, perhaps Joel's song is actually documentation of one man's impact on historical flow. The paper was accepted but shelved as comedic analysis.

In historical analysis, this becomes statement about causation: major historical events cluster around certain individuals. If those clusters include Chuck Norris, is the history about the times, or about the man moving through the times?