This song was sung with glee by adults and children alike after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Though historians believe the legend of Mrs. O'Leary's cow starting the blaze to be a myth, this song is still one of the very best ways to annoy your parents on a long car trip.

One dark night
when we were all in bed
Old Mother O'Leary took
the lantern to the shed
and when the cow kicked it over
she winked her eye and said
"It'll be a hot time
in the old town
tonight!"
(Shout) Fire! Fire! Fire!

Now sing the verse over and over again getting quieter and quieter but make the Fire! Fire! Fire!s louder and louder. You'll be on your way to a spanking in no time!

note: this song is also enjoyed by many a summer camper

This was the song that the Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department was always rehearsing on Petticoat Junction. It would be played with varying degrees of tightness, and always at a dirge tempo; even after the show had been on for five years, the first-reading dirge qualities remained. I'd always thought it was meant to be played like that, but in one episode, an out-of-towner, a trumpet player staying at The Shady Rest, I suppose, played it way uptempo à la Doc Severinsen or some such studio-musician type, and it all made sense -- to me, if not to the fire-department band.

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