THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN - “Fire”
(#255, 17th August 1968)
The first time I heard this - age 14 or so - I thought it was hilarious. My friend and I kept playing the opening seconds again and again. “I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE AND I BRING YOU -” brought up on massive 80s productions we expected Armageddon and we got a gamely bopping goblin. Twenty years on and more used to 60s music, “Fire” still sounds distinctly weedy.
It is possible to be uptempo and scary, but the Crazy World couldn’t manage it. A curse of the underground is that what melts brains onstage (”Unfortunately it is not possible to describe the performance without endangering the galaxy” said one reviewer) becomes tinny and preposterous in the studio glare.
Still, there’s masses to enjoy here. Even without his flaming-head visuals, Brown has real vocal presence, particularly on the chanted “oh no! ohhhh no!” section. And no matter how it’s aged, this was an unusual number one: a big crossover for British psychedelia in fairly unfiltered form. But coming to it from this distance Arthur Brown isn’t terribly devilish - he’s a showman, straight out of the Victorian music hall, and “Fire” is all rather jolly. 6
Site powered by
FT's Doctor Mod on August 23rd, 2006
Good call!
I recently showed a vintage video clip of “Fire” to my summer term class on the British 60s. The smarter students reacted just as you have–the others just sat there looking slightly (and abjectly) frightened, as if those silly warnings about rock and roll satanism were just too true. In retrospect, I think this dual reaction was exactly what the record was intended to stir.
I have to admit taking some guilty pleasure in all of this–both now and in 1968. There is a word for it, and the word is camp. A “gamely bopping goblin” indeed! But as is usual with the most extreme forms of camp, it was a true one off–how can anyone follow up something like this?
Someone taking exception with me regarding “Young Girl” said that the song was “bad” for the reasons I stated but rather that it was “bad” because it was “over-the-top.” Hmmm. Not a viable argument, I think, as “over-the-top” is neither good nor bad in and of itself. In the case of “Fire,” its being over-the-top strikes me as its most salient virtue.
FT's Tom on August 23rd, 2006
Well the video clip (assuming it’s the famous one) is *more* frightening but still not ‘actually’ frightening, as what comes across from it is a huge sense of liberated fun from the camera guys, as filming a total weirdo obviously gives them license to arse about with zooms, swoops and whatever they want.
Most of the hits of 1968 seem to be either campily flamboyant (Dave Dee, Arthur Brown, Rolling Stones) or suffused with intangible loss (most of the next few). And there’s boring old Hey Jude too of course. A strange year.
FT's katstevens on August 23rd, 2006
‘Fire’ fits in so well in the context of the album though, with a sinister intro and plenty of mentalism to back it up (see ‘Great Spontaneous Apple Creation’).
Arthur Brown is possibly the loudest man in the entire world. Louder than Fatman Scoop!
FT's Doctor Mod on August 23rd, 2006
Yes, I think it is the “famous” one–on a strange three-DVD set of obscure origin (and legality) of clips taken from British TV from the Springfields in ‘61 to Joni Mitchell singing “Big Yellow Taxi” in ‘70 (and an amazing variety of stuff in between). The movement of the camera suggests that the cameraman was taken a bit off-guard by the Crazy World and there’s a weird not-as-rehearsed quality to it.
This wasn’t the performance I saw back in the 60s on US TV. Did I actually Arthur Brown on the Tom Jones show? The idea sounds preposterous, but all sorts of weird combinations and contexts were the order of the day back then.
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on August 23rd, 2006
meltzer’s original definition of the “pop free lunch” = hendrix burning his guitar on the lulu show
Erithian on August 23rd, 2006
How many things do you love just as much at 44 as you did at 6? This was the first record I ever rooted for to reach number one, and jumped around the room when it did so, and 38 years later it still stands out for me as one of the all-time great Number 1s.
You and the posters are right to point out the camp aspects, as Arthur Brown, like most UK artists who “dabbled”, never did so without a large slice of humour. The first track of his I heard after “Fire” was a 1967 satire on hippydom called “Give Him A Flower”-
“When you’re driving on the M1 in your 1920 Ford / Without tax or MOT or any brakes / And you’re banned from driving, and you reverse into a truck / And the driver is the same eight stone bully who kicked sand in your face in the last verse -
Give him a flower…”
But apart from the theatrics and the classic intro, what strikes me is that whereas many pop songs have visualised heaven, very few (mainstream ones at any rate) have imagined what it’s like to land in hell. Listening to the condemnation of a soul who was unaware that throughout his life he’s been sealing his fate - “You fought hard and you saved and earned, but all of it’s going to burn…you know you’ve really been so blind, you’ve fallen far too far behind…” - you think that if there is a hell, that’s just the kind of taunting the God of Hellfire is going to give you. Mind you, at six years of age my abiding impression was the burning colander on his head.
DV on August 23rd, 2006
The thing about Arthur Brown is that he is essentially a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins tribute act. This only really becomes apparent when you see him live. Check him out next time you are at a Glastonbury he plays at - he is awesome.
FT's Matt D’Cruz on August 23rd, 2006
The first time I ever heard that line was on the Prodigy’s ‘Fire’ which sounded HUGE AND BELLOWING when I first heard it in that context in 1992. I love the original but the ‘gamely bopping goblin’ bit rings a bit hollow to me for that reason.
FT's Tom on August 23rd, 2006
Yeah the intro is indeed awesomely huge and bellowing, the bopping goblin is what happens after, sorry if that wasn’t clear!
Brian on August 23rd, 2006
I’m amazed that AB is still performing. I remember seeing him, live, in Toronto when this album was released .
And looking back it was viewed more of a “novelty act” as we’d never really seen the big pyrotechnic driven all sound & light , touring shows that were about to be launched.
We’d seen the “west-coast” shows with the swirling coloured liquids lightshows ( through an overhead projector ) accompanying The Dead & Jefferson Airplane , but not a guy who was literally burning the house down. In many ways AB was an unwitting harbinger of things to come - both in terms of where live shows were going and what was going to happen otherwise.
At that time I think we were aware that the dream was over and maybe, subconsciously , after all that hedonistic love trip, we were going to pay somehow. Rock was taking a peculiar turn. Even ” Jumpin’ Jack Flash ” is a pretty mean character - not of this earth. And , if my time line is correct, ” Sympathy for the Devil ” The Manson murders and Altamont are just around the corner.
from website Morrison Hotel :
“The whole thing was reduced to a freak show. San Francisco hippies buried the whole thing with a grand procession….But as the “Summer Of Love” concluded nobody had any idea that all hell was going to break loose in just a few months.” -
“Strange days have found us, strange days have tracked us down.” Jim Morrison
FT's wwolfe on August 23rd, 2006
“…essentially a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins tribute act.” That’s right on the nose.
In one way, Brown reminds me of PJ Proby in that both singers always seem to be “trying on” a variety of voices over the course of a song, in the same way a theater actor runs through several costumes during a play. While this seems natural and right for an actor, I think it makes it difficult for a listener to connect with a singer - or at least to sustain a connection over any length of time. (The exception here is probably Bowie, maybe because he was more conscious of his using his singing voice as an actor would use his appearance.) When I hear “Fire,” I think at some point I find myself wondering what Brown’s singing voice actually sounds like - and thinking about his voice as I write this, I can’t imagine what he could do with it other than a larger-than-life, over-the-top piece of material like “Fire.” And how many of those come along in the life of any given singer? That made Brown hard to cast in very many roles, to exhaust the analogy.
I was wondering whatever happened to Vincent Crane, the co-writer of this song, so I looked him up at All Music Guide. He was the main guy in Atomic Rooster, who had a #4 hit single with “The Devil’s Answer,” along with a #11 album with “The Devil Walks Behind You,” before committing suicide in 1989. This leads me to believe that, however campy the performance may seem now, Crane seems to have believed in the scary part of “Fire.” Maybe that’s what gives little kids a shiver when they hear this song (me included).
FT's Ward Fowler on August 23rd, 2006
Vincent Crane also played keyboards on Dexy’s ‘Don’t Stand Me Down’ alb - there are pictures of him all togged up like the rest of the group, looking very sad.
intothefireuk on August 25th, 2006
My enduring memory of ‘Fire’ is linked to an incident that happened not a mere mile from where I lived at the time. Brown appeared at the 1968 Jazz & Blues Festival (fore-runner of the Reading festival) held at Kempton Park Racecourse. Part of the fencing collapsed just as he took the stage and hundreds of people were injured. Brown, who was somewhat ‘out of it’ stomped off stage halfway through ‘Fire’ shouting ‘Oh Shit’ and throwing the mic down. He returned amid a sea of ambulances and finished the set off. Unfortunately I was too young to be there at the time but as were so close to the event it was certainly a huge talking point. I saw him years later with essentially the same act - bless. Agree the song is camp and not a little prog as well. Great at Halloween though.
FT's Alan on August 25th, 2006
Good game to play with the intro is to shout over the top of the final word something timid and pedestrian. ho ho.
“I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE AND I BRING YOU… BISCUITS (duh-duh duuh)”
or cake, or hamsters. (du-duh duuuuh). i so funny
FT's CarsmileSteve on August 25th, 2006
we once spent a WHOLE day making up more and more convoluted ways of making each other say words that rhyme with fire, which had to be said in an arthur brown voice, eg:
what’s that thing, y’know, mediaeval stringed instrument, looks a bit like a guitar? LYRE! DUH DUH DUR
group of people singing in church? CHOIR! DUH DUH DUR
hours and hours of fun…
intothefireuk on August 25th, 2006
bloody students !
FT's CarsmileSteve on August 25th, 2006
hehe, i think it was “bludy doley scumbags” actually…
Chris Brown on August 27th, 2006
I always associate this with an anecdote I heard years ago on the radio from somebody whose father had been a fire marshall at some festival or other around this time. Obviously an older man not entirely familiar with the nature of the act, he was hanging about backstage and caught sight of Arthur Brown, flaming headdress and all, being hoisted onto the stage. Distressed by a man with his head on fire, he thought quickly and threw his glass of beer over to extinguish it, leaving Arthur to appear on stage without flames and covered in beer.
As for the song, I always looked upon it as just a typical bit of Sixties silliness. Nothing wrong with that. I suppose in retrospect, the fact that it spent a week at the top before being displaced by its predeccessor gives away what a cult thing it was.
Oh, and one of my books says it was co-produced by Pete Townsend. Can this be true?
Marcello Carlin on August 30th, 2006
I first heard and saw it (on TOTP) when I was four and it/he scared the shit out of me, before I knew anything about showbiz.
Mark Grout on August 31st, 2006
It was the talk of Cubs, as we waited for Kaa to roll up on his motorbike and let us into the church hall.
Wasn’t this one of those times where a lead-off single boosted sales of the album to unsustainable levels? The follow-up single ‘floundered’ if not exactly flopped, and no further records hit the charts.
My guess: People bought the album for more of the same, found psychedelic silliness, took it too seriously and never went back!
Marcello Carlin on August 31st, 2006
Yes, and then the Crazy World evolved into Kingdom Come (v. underrated band) and then AB disappeared to Austin, TX for a bit to run a painting and decorating business with Jimmy Carl Black (I think) Out Of The Mothers. It all comes back to, or ends up with, Zappa in the end.
Oh No It's Dadaismus on September 1st, 2006
This used to be on the jukebox in my local in Glasgow, I used to play the same three songs every time I went in, “Fire”, “Louie Louie” and Michael Jackson’s “Ben”. Surprisingly I wasn’t barred. But, “Fire”, GREAT song, I want this played at my cremation!
Dave on June 3rd, 2007
Hi there, i am looking for an old video/film/animation of “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s FIRE” It is a “cartoon” that was scary and well played in the early 80s. The animation included a house on fire with gremlin like characters in it.
If anyone could link me this, or post on how to find it, i will be very appreciative of this.
Thank you
Caledonianne on July 15th, 2007
I, too found this really scary as a child. Still had a bit of apprehension when I saw him the act at the Wicker Man Festival a couple of years ago.
Matt, on October 22nd, 2007
I recently watched the glastonbury fayre movie,and I thought that,the arthur brown section was superb