Fire can represent a constellation of meanings in music. From the ignition of fiery romance, to the destructive force that diminishes joy into ashes, our playlist of songs about fire covers it all.
Whether you seek a song ignited with the energy of fireworks or a piece that mirrors your tired embers, our list flickers with the same multitude of colours as a flame.
Songs About Fire
1. BTS – Fire
BTS’ track Fire is a furnace of careless, youthful energy. It’s all about feeling like a loser in the day, but finding your inner fire and power during the drunk hours of the night.
Their lyrics are ablaze with inebriated chaos and positivity; lines like “I’m messed up like I’m a nut,” soon fizzle into the obscurity of the late-night hours, “What kind of spoon are you talking to me like that? Don’t call me a spoon! I’m just a human.”
Fire rallies the ashen-hearted together, sparking a dynamic driving force within their fireball chorus, “Let’s burn it all.”
2. Ed Sheeran – I See Fire
While I See Fire is the soundtrack for 2013 film ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,’ it’s message burns brighter the underlying plot. Ed Sheeran echoes a battle-cry which smoulders in sadness.
Optimistically, his track represents togetherness in the face of disaster, but its lamenting atmosphere sparks the feeling of a slow-burning apocalypse.
With the backdrop of the Lord of the Rings mythos, I See Fire resonates with the haunting, earthy sounds of ancient woods as light-bearing poetry is blended seamlessly with destruction;
“I see fire burning the trees.. hollowing souls.. blood on the breeze … Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side.”
3. Deep Purple – Smoke on the Water
There’s no smoke without fire. The story behind Deep Purple’s classic Smoke On The Water is probably the most rock n’ roll example of this
In 1971, Deep Purple travelled to Montreux, Switzerland to record the album featuring Smoke inside a mobile recording studio rented from the Rolling Stones.
They were near the Montreux Casino on the shores of Lake Geneva, a venue which hosted prog rock overlord Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention shortly before Deep Purple’s recording sessions were due to commence.
According to legend, “some stupid with a flare gun” shot into the roof of the Casino during Zappa’s show, igniting a huge fire that carcassed the venue. Deep Purple witnessed the flood of flames engulfing the Casino and spreading their immorialised smoke over the waters of Lake Geneva.
4. The Cure – Fire In Cairo
Fire In Cairo is a blinding contrast to the synth-washed goth rock synonymous with The Cure’s later discography.
With a minimalistic punk aura studded by evocative Middle Eastern imagery, fire is crafted into a metaphor for luminescent love; “Through the dark, your eyes shine bright, and burn like fire, burn like fire in Cairo.”
The Cure’s gold-dusted poetry glows with blazing desert illustrations, until the heat-born love that was found burns into embers with the setting of the fiery sun. The sweltering Eastern ambience creates a unique and fitting backdrop for a lustful song about fire.
5. Rammstein – Feuer Frei!
Feuer Frei! is Rammstein’s merciless take on the concept of fire. Translating roughly to “fire at will,” Rammstein extinguish the common ‘love’ metaphor, raising fury through each pulse of their remorselessly gritty EDM style track.
Their unrestrained sound is provoked by the doom of enclosing sirens, raising the alarm of nearing, ravaging danger.
Their relentless energy pours buckets of gasoline upon an erupting military rhythm, crafting music so rapid it becomes as claustrophobic as the breathless heat of an inferno.
6. Bastille- Things We Lost In The Fire
From their game-changing album ‘Bad Blood,’ Bastille’s Things We Lost In The Fire is about a romance that goes up in flames.
The character is left in lonely reminiscence of the ashes that surround him; the dire consequence of love overwrought with disaster.
While the ‘fire’ in question could symbolise literally anything hot with relationship-ending energy, Bastille’s colourful spread of sound conjures a clear-headed, inspiring twist to an otherwise pessimistic song.
7. Metallica – Moth Into Flame
“Seduced by fame, moth into the flame” – this later Metallica’s track is fueled by the tragedy of the Amy Winehouse story and the complex of troubled celebrities who preceded her.
A track blazing with the unforgiving nature of an inferno, Metallica are relentless in their lyrics, almost mimicking the incessant hatred Amy was shown by media vultures during the late 2000s.
Alongside fire representing the destructive allure of fame and fortune, Metallica draw the sour link between drugs and fire found far too commonly beneath the glaring spotlight, “Light it up, another hit erases all the pain.”
8. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown – Fire
Glam-rock’s long-lost hero, Arthur Brown, laid the foundations of heavy metal without even knowing it.
Fire is a strange dark take on 60’s psychedelia, ignited with Satanic imagery and devilish threats of damnation, with Arthur Brown haloed in hellfires during his ground-breaking gig on Top Of The Pops.
Now a mostly obscure artist, Brown played a part in pioneering a number of heavy metal clichés: his persona of manic eccentricism was unheard of and thus unmatched, his striking monochrome make up set the scene for bands from KISS to King Diamond, while his vocals paraded iconic glam-rock falsetto, years ahead of its time.
If you think this song is crazy, just imagine the wildfire it would have caused back in 1968.
9. Sam Smith – Fire On Fire
Sam Smith’s passionate love song, Fire On Fire wraps a few layers within its lustful meaning.
On the surface, the song is about two lovers whose intense and fiery personalities lead to destruction and romance, “When we fight, we fight like lions but then we love and feel the truth.”
But at the song’s heart is an allusion to gay love and perseverance. “Fire on fire” probably refers to fire’s masculine character perceived since antiquity;
“Fire on fire, would normally kill us, with this much desire, together we’re winners, they say that we’re out of control and some say we’re sinners, but don’t let them ruin our beautiful rhythms.”