Lake of Fire is an
American original, first
recorded by the
Meat Puppets in 1983, on their
second eponymous album. More recently, it has been heard on the 1994
Nirvana cover, on
Nirvana: Unplugged (
a definitive performance can be seen here -- including some neat post-song banter, the whole thing providing a heartbreaking reminder of what a talent
Kurt Cobain was, and how laid back a person he always seemed).
The
song itself is a slow-rolling
commentary of sorts on the
Biblical reference to a
literal "Lake of Fire" in
Hell. Musically, the song is comparatively sedate, too slow to call
punk tho punkish in attitude -- for some stretches, it almost carries a hint of
southern rock. It is a fairly short piece with some neat jangly flashes, some
versions running under two minutes. Even within that short play it consists of only two true
verses, interspersed between three repetitions of the
chorus:
Where do bad folks go when they die?
They don't go to Heaven where the angels fly
They go to the Lake of Fire and fry
(Won't) see them again 'till the fourth of July
The description of the
fates of "bad folks" appears to be
tongue in cheek (not surprising where the most significant cover shares album space with a cover of
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam). The first "verse" is an odd, almost out of place sort of melange, about a "
lady who came from
Duluth" who was "bit by a dog with a
rabid tooth" resulting in her premature
death, to which she went "
howling on the
yellow moon." It might be supposed that the lady in question is one of those bad folks that drive the theme, and those are the people squarely piled on in the second verse.
The
crying and
moaning of the
condemned is related in the second verse, as they seek "a
dry place to call their
home" and "rest their
bones." An interesting cap to this verse is that the
angels and
devils are said (or sung, rather) to be trying to make the condemned "their own." This is interesting in light of the common conviction that the angels have no stake in those who have ended up in Hell, that condemnation is eternal and without possibility of
redemption after
judgment has dispatched one to the
hot spot.
But maybe the most interesting
sentimentation is the bit about the
Fourth of July thrice echoed in the last line of the chorus. The Fourth of July is a uniquely
American holiday, so
why won't the bad folks be seen again until that date? For good or ill, this suggests some connection to be drawn between the very being of America and condemnation, again underscoring the American nature of the song itself.