WIXX's Wisconsin version of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' name-drops AJ Dillon, Spotted Cow, Kwik Trip, Charlie Berens
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GREEN BAY – Wisconsin never knew it needed its own version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” because it never had one.
Until now.
Thank WIXX-FM’s Corey Carter and Huggie for coming up with one that’ll have you singing along to lyrics that name-drop everyone from Screech, Bart Starr and Ryan Braun to Guy Zima, Matt LaFleur and Tom Zalaski — sometimes in the same line.
Fall Out Boy’s current remake of the 1989 Billy Joel classic filled with rapid-fire references to notable events through the decades got Carter, the station’s brand manager, thinking the Badger State was worthy of the same treatment, so he and on-air personality Huggie sat down one day last week and knocked it out.
“Wisconsin Started the Fire” dropped Monday on the longtime Green Bay Top 40 station’s social media platforms with a green and gold lyrics video created by Andrew Haze. It hit the airwaves Tuesday, where it’s in rotation about every four hours.
“Aaron’s gone/Love is in/Kwik Trip be free samplin,’” it begins. “Charlie Berens crackin’ jokes/Kenosha fire full of smoke.”
The list of references covers the state from the Door County peninsula to Rib Mountain to the House on the Rock and a lot of territory in between. It even briefly careens across state lines to take a swipe at the Chicago Bears. Food and drink did not go underrepresented: Spotted Cow, Sun Drop, cheese and cream puffs all get their dues.
We figured Wisconsin needed its own version of "We Didn't Start The Fire" - enjoy!
Posted by 101 WIXX on Thursday, August 10, 2023
A good share of the material came from Carter, because if there’s “a dirty secret of the song,” it’s that the lyrics all make mention of things from the last 13 years — the same amount of time Carter, a Minnesota native, has lived in Wisconsin.
So you’re not going to get the Peshtigo fire of 1871, but remember the time Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews took a line drive to the face and busted his nose during the 2018 Green & Gold Charity Softball Game? That’s in there.
Don’t tell anybody, but Huggie isn’t from Wisconsin, either. Born and raised in Illinois, he moved to Green Bay in 2022 after Otis Day left the station and now does the midday show from 2 to 6 p.m.
Local headlines like how a section of Leo Frigo Bridge sagged in 2013 and caused Green Bay traffic headaches for months or the mystery of booms in Clintonville in 2012 quickly popped into Carter’s head. What Huggie lacked in historical perspective, he made up for elsewhere.
“I think one of the most brilliant lines in the song was Huggie’s idea,” Carter said. “That was (Packers running back) ‘AJ Dillon’s quadriceps.’”
One of Carter’s favorite things about the song is some of the indirect references that might have people outside of the state scratching their heads.
“But for us in Wisconsin, it almost feels like you’re in this clique, because you know about the giant horse at Mt. Olympus (Water & Theme Park Resort) and you know about goats on roofs (at Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant),” Carter said. “There’s all these little things that wouldn’t make sense unless you lived in Wisconsin, and to me that’s really what kind of makes it special.”
‘I think that’s why people are digging it and sharing it and posting it, because they feel a part of it,” Huggie said.
That’s him doing the vocals on the song, all roughly 100 tracks and 27 edits in his home studio. While the songwriting came together in about two hours, the vocals were trickier.
“I had so many edits because Corey kept saying, ‘This is great, this is great, but can you say the name properly?’” Huggie said. “I’m dyslexic, and I don’t really know any of these references, because I’ve only been here a year. I know a handful but whooee, I had to get down! It took me about five hours.”
There was a learning curve on the pronunciation of words like Neshotah Beach and the Polish pastry paczki, but Huggie's talents as a singer give the song a level of credibility it would have lacked if they just had WIXX’s “Murphy in the Morning” crew take a crack at singing it in the studio, Carter said. (No offense to “Murphy in the Morning.” Of course, it’s in the song.)
“I feel like if we wouldn’t have had that element to it, we would’ve come across as a stupid radio station trying too hard to be funny,” Carter said.
But Huggie, who went to college for audio production and engineering, is a legit musician. Before he got into radio, he lived in Los Angeles and wrote some songs with Macy Gray, Ludacris and others. He once played rhythm guitar in a band called the Banjo Boys under the name "Pigpen."
“I’ve been in bands forever. I have so many records nobody is ever going to hear,” Huggie said. “This is how I’m going to get a song on the radio.”
His dad has already given it the stamp of approval.
“He was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about but it sounded really good,'" Huggie said. "He said it was badass.”
For as many references packed into it, Carter knows there would be easily enough to do another song. He wishes, for example, he had squeezed Uncle Mike’s Bake Shoppe kringle in there. But the whole idea of “Wisconsin Started the Fire” was to give people something fun about the state to bounce along with, and that’s already happening.
“I would bet in the next week, everybody in Wisconsin will have heard this,” Carter said.
Next thing you know, Huggie joked, the Packers might be asking him to sing it at Lambeau Field during halftime. Carter said he is just waiting for that first call from a fourth-grade teacher somewhere saying they’re going to use it to teach Wisconsin history in the classroom.
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Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: WIXX's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' cites Green Bay Packers, Kwik Trip & more
