Something Different
This query is arguably beneath the dignity of this forum, but the question is so puzzling that I don't know where to turn. Here's the problem. The lyric "we don't need no water, let the motherf---er burn" appears in many different songs. For example:
- The Bloodhound Gang, "Fire Water Burn."
- Rancid, "Burn."
- Bratmobile, "Polaroid Baby."
- Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, "Thugs Always."
- Coal Chamber, "Sway"
What's the orgin of this phrase? To be clear, this isn't a single song that a lot of bands have covered. Rather, it's a single phrase that pops up in many songs.
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Comments (32)
It's a little before your time. I'm pretty sure the title of the song is "The Roof Is On Fire."
October 3, 2005 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know the name of the original band, but it appears that The Bloodhound Gang has covered it:
The roof. The roof.
The roof is on fire.
We don't need no water
Let the motherfucker burn.
Burn, motherfucker, burn...
October 3, 2005 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
But are you sure that's the original? And even if it is, why would this particular phrase resonate so deeply as to be incorporated into so many different songs.
October 3, 2005 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
All I know is that there was a song in the early- to mid-eighties (probably roughly contemporaneous with "99 Red Balloons") that featured that stanza pretty much exclusively. This was well before the Bloodhound Gang or your other cites, I think, so I'm guessing it was the Ur-roof afire. It was also before the widespread use of constructing songs out of samples,
October 3, 2005 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to some light googling, it's the way Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three did the chorus in concert for the song "The Roof is On fire". It's not in the official lyrics. There is some mention that Parliament and others have used it, that it was a funk/R&B catchphrase, especially as an audience response thing. BTW, according to google, Slick Rick was one of the Dynamic Three. I'll stop now since I don't know the first thing about any of this in all honesty.
October 3, 2005 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
1984/85 The Roof is on Fire by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three.
October 3, 2005 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, it certainly predates the bloodhound gang, as I remember it from my early teenage years. Don't remember rockmaster scott, but it's about the right era I remember the song from.
October 3, 2005 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. And the line was reused in many places outside of music. It was recast as 'LaRouche is on fire' for Pierre LaRouche when he was playing for the Rangers (I was fortunate enough to get him for his Hershey Bears year when I was in college). It was easily resued in all kinds of venues because it was so recognized.
Not surprising to see that line make a return a generation later.
October 3, 2005 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right. I have the track in my iTunes library -- and on a random note, the Chemical Brothers sampled the opening bars of the song for the track "Hey Boy Hey Girl," from their Surrender CD.
October 3, 2005 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
As long as Reed Hundt is posting ill-formatted Redskins commentary, you need not be excessively occupied with "dignity-of-this-forum" concerns.
October 3, 2005 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love the "Ur-roof afire"! The rest of the commentary is nice, but that’s just so ... slightly goofy and therefore perfect.
October 3, 2005 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could the the phrase refer back somehow to the assault on the MOVE compound in Philadelphia in 1985? A bomb was dropped on thge roof of the compound, which ignited a fire on the roof which spread to the whole building. Despite the presence of firefighting equipment trained on the roof, a decision was made by police chief Gregory Sambor to let the fire burn. Eleven lives were lost in the fire.
October 3, 2005 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are plenty of examples of seemingly banal catch phrases that have found inordinately long lives in song lyrics, e.g. "tick tock and you don't stop, to the."
October 3, 2005 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's all about dancing frenzy, as they used to say in the olden daze, 'boogying down." (We never really boogied down; that phrase was laughed at the minute it came out.) See, for example:
Artist: The Trammps Lyrics
Song: Disco Inferno Lyrics
Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn!
Burnin'!
To mass fires, yes! One hundred stories high
People gettin' loose y'all gettin' down on the roof - Do you hear?
(the folks are flaming)Folks were screamin' - out of control
It was so entertainin' - when the boogie started to explode
I heard somebody say
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno!
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno!
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down
Burnin'!
Satisfaction (uhu hu hu) came in the chain reaction
(burnin') I couldn't get enough, (till I had to self-destroy)so I had to
self destruct, (uhu hu hu)
The heat was on (burnin'), rising to the top, huh!
Everybody's goin' strong (uhu hu hu)
And that is when my spark got hot
I heard somebody say
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno!
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down, yoh!
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno!
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down
Burnin'!
Up above my head I hear music in the air - I hear music!
That makes me know there's (somebody)a promise somewhere
Satisfaction came in a chain reaction - Do you hear?
I couldn't get enough, so I had to self destruct,
The heat was on, rising to the top
Everybody's goin' strong
That is when my spark got hot
I heard somebody say
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno! (Aah yeah!)
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down
Burn baby burn! - Disco inferno, yeah!
Burn baby burn! - Burn that mama down x2 Burnin'!
MUSIC TURN AROUND (12 bars)
I just can't stop
When(till) my spark gets hot
Just can't stop
When my spark gets hot
MUSIC TURN AROUND (24 bars)
Burning, burning, burning, burning 6X (24 bars)
October 3, 2005 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
arguably beneath the dignity of this forum,
Not to me, for one. Wish there was more of this kind of thing, would help people "lighten up," as you titled a recent post. When stuff like this is part of the conversations here, those of any political affiliation who can be described as 'the extremely earnest,' the rantophiles, get the message that "this might not be my kinda place."
October 3, 2005 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
And doesn't the phrase "burn baby burn" go back to the Watts riots in the summer of 1965?
October 4, 2005 3:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matthew sucks and is ruining the site.
October 4, 2005 6:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
"This query is arguably beneath the dignity of this forum,"
No indignity here, but it is off-topic IMHO.
October 4, 2005 6:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've always wanted Slashdot to tell me that.
Anyway...
Is pop culture generally beneath the dignity of this forum? I hope not.
I don't know if this is a lift from another song, but a great Fayetteville, Arkansas funk band, Punkinhead, used to play that in their closer, along with the lines:
I've always taken this lyric to be about being poor, on bottom, whatever, and refusing both to lie down and die and to become a self-centered bastard.
Maybe I'm wrong. It still brings me up when I'm down. There's nothing wrong with that.
October 4, 2005 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know if it started in the sixties, but these type phrases were definitely used by some people in the sixties pertaining to the urban uprisings in places like Watts, Detroit, DC, Girard Avenue in Philly, etc,
October 4, 2005 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Burn Baby Burn" was also one of the famous "sermon" tracks on Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s controversial 1967 LP "Keep the Faith, Baby!"
Good historical summary here.
And see the LP cover art here.
October 4, 2005 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you should rename the post "Matthew names 5 of the most irrelevant bands of all time."
October 4, 2005 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
October 4, 2005 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. That was the chant used during the MOVE firestorm. It was a sarcastic retort to the decision of the Phil. Fire Dept. to let the buildings burn down. It then was incorporated in early rap.
October 4, 2005 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"According to some light googling, it's the way Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three"
Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three have the first "official" usage in their 1985 12" The Roof is On Fire. However, the phrase almost definitely predates this usage.
It was also used by early 80's rapper Afrika Bambaataa.
But as with most things in rap, it actually dates back to the 1970's and George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic.
One of Parliament's biggest songs of the 70's was Tear the Roof Off, and while "The roof is on fire" is not part of the studio lyrics to that song, I strongly believe Clinton invented the refrain for live versions of the song.
Clinton in the 80's had the best riff off the ubiquitous phrase with:
October 4, 2005 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
And just to note, if you don't have any Parliament or Funkadelic in your music collection, you are seriously missing out.
October 4, 2005 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good gravy, MY. Do I ever feel old.
October 4, 2005 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
This definitely existed in the 70s. I can remember everyone on my bus singing this verse as part of a song fantasising about the school burning down.
This was in Greensboro, NC, where high school kids got course credit (as far as I understand it) for driving elementary school buses.
Not exactly the safest approach - the drivers raced each other, and let us kids on the buses do anything we liked. God it was good.
October 4, 2005 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also, I couldn't help but think of this: <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39024">Ro of On Fire Claims Lives Of 43 Party People</a>(you'll have to copy the link, sorry)
October 4, 2005 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
MY might be more familiar with Doug E Fresh as the MC for Puffy's HBO Comedy series or less likely as The Human Beat Box.
October 4, 2005 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"When stuff like this is part of the conversations here, those of any political affiliation who can be described as 'the extremely earnest,' the rantophiles, get the message that "this might not be my kinda place."
Most definitely.
Dunno if you ever stopped by Yglesias's old place before TPMCafe, but the mechanism you identify gave the commenting space a very pleasant vibe.
October 4, 2005 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Christian rock version:
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don't need no water. Let the Holy Ghost burn!
-----
I'm amazed how resistant a full resolution of this issue is to Googling.
I'm 99% certain that this predates Rock Master Scott in 1985, but Google evidence of that seems impossible to come by...
October 5, 2005 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink