Songs For Bonfire Night

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Last week saw Halloween which, although it is a much smaller deal here than in the US, I marked with a few tunes. Tonight it is our turn for the longstanding tradition of Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night as it is more commonly known. I have played fire songs for this for a number of years and have many from which I could choose, so I’m going for a set of previously played songs, a kind of ‘greatest hits’ of those. And I’ll be cutting down on the information on each – the aim is to get in as many songs as possible without the usual waffle!

But first, a brief history lesson for those not from these shores. We are celebrating the failure of a plot in 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which we do with bonfires on which we place an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the fall guy for the plot, accompanied by fireworks. A ‘penny for the guy’ was a part of the tradition when I was growing up, when we took our effort out in Dad’s wheelbarrow in an attempt at demanding money with menaces from the local  population. We never made much, though.

If you want to know the full story Wikipedia has a very detailed page about the Gunpowder Plot, which you can find here. And I do mean very detailed – I ‘borrowed’ the header image from it, as you will notice if you follow the link. Rather than go on at length about it, my usual habit is to share a version from the estimable Horrible Histories tv show, which puts it all into a nutshell:

 

 

And now for the music. I have six songs for you, and as I said I have played them all before so they may not come as a surprise – all are worth hearing again though! There really only is one with which I can start, isn’t there:

The very appropriately named Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Fire, which was a #1 hit here in the UK in 1968. It also made #1 in Canada and #2 in the US, so hopefully you guys will know it. 1968 was clearly a good year for our music charts, as this one was also a big hit:

Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity with This Wheel’s On Fire, a cover of a song written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko of The Band, which was first heard on The Band’s debut album Music From Big Pink, which also came out in 1968. As I said, a good year!

Next up is an old favourite of mine. Sorry, rock fans, but I’m not going with Eric Burdon’s epic version of this one, but an earlier one:

Johnny Cash, of course, with Ring Of Fire. Nothing says fire quite like a pseudo-mariachi band, does it!

You may well know this next one from The Pointer Sisters’ cover version. I’m going with the original:

Bruce Springsteen, with Fire, a song he wrote in 1977 though this performance is much later – from 2009.

A rock classic for you now:

The Doors and Light My Fire – they don’t come much more classic rock than that, do they!

With all this fire around you may  need some help. Who you gonna call? The Fire Brigade, of course:

The Move with Fire Brigade, a song I bought as a single and played to bits: I’m still word perfect, even down to my timing of Carl Wayne’s ‘oohs.’

That’s it for the tunes, but I’ll leave you with another cartoon, a suitable one for these days of home grocery shopping:

 

©️Modern Toss

If you are celebrating tonight I hope you have a great time, and keep it safe – you don’t want to become a statistic. And bear in mind that pets can be terrified at all the firework explosions. They don’t do much for elderly bloggers, either, so don’t be anti-social!

I’ll see you again soon – I have something lined up before we get to Song Lyric Sunday. I’m spoiling you! Take care 🤗

17 thoughts on “Songs For Bonfire Night”

    • Thank you, Darlene, I’m glad you liked them. That is probably the worst version of the song I know! Along with this one I’d recommend The Band. Everything Horrible Histories do is great, and a fun way for kids to learn history.

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  4. Clive, now I am all fired up. Great selections. They each use “fire” as a metaphor in different ways. Of course, Ed Sullivan did not like “The Doors” disobeying his orders when they sang this song on his show. Keith

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  5. I don’t know why anyone would celebrate Guy Fawkes night. Yeah, it was great that the House of Parliament wasn’t blown up & all those people killed but the fact that the reason that it was going to blown up was because the Catholic faith was illegal & if you were a Catholic & caught celebrating your faith, you would be put into prison, tortured to find out where out other Catholics were & then killed by hanging ~ I just don’t see any reason to celebrate November 5 whatsoever. I see the Guy Fawkes & Robert Catsby & their crew as martyrs for their faith.

    The songs, though, are great. & I always love a bon fire. & as a American, I have to note that it was these kinds of egregious events that gave birth to our First Amendment.

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      • But it’s not folklore. It’s history. Are you told the history?

        I mean, here in the States, a lot of people aren’t told the real history of a lot of stuff, so I get it if you’re not. I’m really into history, especially British history.

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      • Yes, when I was at school it was a standard part of our history course, and the reasons for it. And at least we aren’t trying to rewrite history, as seems prevalent over there. Hopefully that will stop after the election results, especially in Texas.

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  6. Nice selection, Clive. I had the Arthur Brown record, the Julie Driscoll one, and The Move one. And I even liked the Johnny Cash song, though would never have bought it back then. I had the Jose Feliciano cover of ‘Light My Fire’, though I did also like The Doors, and more or less everything they did. Shared on Twitter.

    Best wishes, Pete.

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