There’s a song I heard recently in which the chorus has the lines:
“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire…”
and
“…let the motherfucker burn,
burn mother fucker, burn”
Surely someone as SDMB knows who it is and the name of the song. It sounds like the perfect thing to play very loud when I am feeling decidedly antisocial.
The Bloodhound Gang- The Roof.
“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
We don’t need no water,
let the motherfucker burn,
burn motherfucker burn.”
Kinda catchy, isn’t it.
Yeah… I’m not black like Barry White. I am white like Frank Black is.
Isn’t there an older 70s funk version of this song that’s not like the Bloodhound Gang’s little rap version? Or have I lost my bloody mind?
You didn’t lose your mind Simetra, I remember singing that in summer camp.
For years I thought it was made up by the little miscreants I hung around with. I still have no idea who did it though. 
Rose
Here is a link I found with a Yahoo search:
Speaking of Frank Black, the Bloodhound Gang also “borrowed” the lyrics from the Pixies on that same song. Bonus points to anyone who names the Pixies song.
I remember hearing the older song on a great soul/funk show our student radio used to have, so I googled the lyrics, and came up with essentially nothing (usually searching for text passages is a great way to find stuff; my girlfriend catch plagarists in her classes this way. Moral: kids, plagarize from books, not the internet).
From what I could find out, the phrase is just something people said. There are cheerleading versions ("…we don’t need no water, let the spirit rise higher") and (maybe?) protest versions ("…we don’t need no water, let the mutherfucker burn"). Also, Tha Eastsidaz, Coal Chamber and who knows who else use the lines on records.
Google turned up all sorts of non-song related uses, as well as the phrase in live (unecorded) call-and-response hip hop sets. The DJ/MC would yell, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire” and the audience would respond, “We don’t need no water, let the mutherfucker burn”, so it must have been a phrase people just knew, circa mid seventies or even earlier.
Maybe if someone has the Bloodhound Gang record, they can tell us if the funk song is cited in the liner notes. Probably not, though, since they just alluded to it, rather than sampled it.
We don’t need no water
'Cause it’s an electrical fire,
avacado
Yes, the Bloodhound Gang covered it. The original was by Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three. Talk about “Old School,” yo…
You’re welcome.
Oh, and as an aside, the Bloodhound Gang version is titled “Fire Water burn,” and the Rock Master Scott version is called “The Roof Is On Fire.”
Word up, yo. Or something.