While at work flame-broiling several hundred pieces of chicken for a banquet a couple weeks ago, a song popped into my head. Not the whole song, just the very beginning of the song. It’s a song I heard perhaps twice, many many years ago, probably on an “oldies” radio station. The song’s intro was memorable, mainly due to what I felt was a stylistic inconsistency. The version I heard may have been a live performance, or not, I don’t recall.
Anyway, the song started out with the singer bellowing, in a voice that would make a modern death metal vocalist proud,
“I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU …”
“… fire. I’ll make you burn …”
On the word “fire” (which is sung in a completely different voice from the shouted lead-in) the band kicked in. The music was totally at odds with the bombastic shouted intro, sounding pretty much like every other typical organ-based, late-sixties pop song. You know, groovy-sounding.
Anybody have any idea what this song was and who performed it?
Originally by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which is more likely to be the version you heard.
Nah, I think he’s talking about the original version.
Fire, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
No, but it was sampled pretty memorably by The Prodigy
Song, appropriately is called “Fire”
I knew what song this was going to be as soon as I saw the title…
Yup, that’s the song I remembered. Thanks! This was one of those things from childhood/teenage years that has just sort of popped back into my head every once in a while over the years, so it’s good to finally know the who and what of the song.
Was this guy a contemporary of Alice Cooper? I see a resemblance …
Dang; I’d hoped this was going to be about the Tiger Lillies’ song “Fire.” I’d have had that aced.
Somewhat more accordions than Ozzy, though.
Almost. “Fire” was a big hit in the Fall of 1968 (peaked at #2 in the U.S.; probably would have made #1 if it hadn’t been for the Beatles putting out “Hey Jude” at the same time and monopolizing the top spot all through October and November). Alice Cooper’s first album came out the following August.