The Fire Next Time

Was a time when the Ancient of Days                  Am F7
Tried to turn a man from his wicked ways.         E7  Am  E7
With the whole living world to unfold,                 Am F7
Only loves himself, and he loves his gold, and he       E7 —-Esus/B

Doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t hear,                       A7   Dm
Doesn’t know that it can all disappear!                 E7  Am  E7
And the rains did rock and the rains did roll,      A7  D7
And the waters covered all the earth, so I’m told.     G7  C  Esus/B  E7

Then it came to pass that the sun did shine            Am  F7
On a dove and a branch and a rainbow sign,          E7 Am E7
And a warning to all: ” better walk the line:           Am  F7
It’s gonna be the fire next time!”                               E7   Am-D-Am-D

You may think that you are here to stay, but a             Am F7
Few degrees and you can all blow away.                        E7 Am E7
Just look where you’re going now, without any help. A7 Dm
Forests wither and the mountains they melt                E7   Am  E7
But while you’re burning it down, may I remind         A7   Dm7
It’s gonna be the fire next time.                                        E7   Am
INSTRUMENTAL

One more thing I’d like to say:     (calypso)                    F G C
It doesn’t  have to be that  way.                                        G7  C
Use the brains that I gave you, it’s not a crime.            F Fm  C Am
Don’t have to keep ’em where the sun doesn’t shine!  Esus E7 AmE7

You better use ’em now, ’cause it’s a long, long climb,      A7  Dm
It’s gonna be the fire this time,                                              E7  F7
It’s gonna be the fire this time!                                          F7 E7 Am   

©Doug Hendren 2022

What’s it about?  Many stories from around the world have stories about world destruction. In western tradition, the best known among these is the story of an ancient flood, as told in the book of Genesis (1:6-10). My musical version of the story is “Noah’s Rag.”

This song was inspired by the title of James Baldwin’s book, “The Fire Next Time.” The title in turn came from a line in the old spiritual Mary, Don’t You Weep.:  “God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water but fire next time.”

It seems apt for our moment in time, where human activities have set in motion changes in our world at a speed and scale that few of us are able to fully grasp. In the English language, “biblical” is still one of the best adjectives to grasp the magnitude of changes we have made to our oceans and atmosphere. Warmer air holds more moisture, enabling “atmospheric rivers,” bigger than the Mississippi, to carry huge amounts of water great distances. Now we get astonishing rainfall in some places (see my song Fake Weather), and epic wildfires in other places (see “Make The Angels Weep“).

In 2023, John Vaillant published “Fire Weather: A true story from a hotter world.”  He explains why extremes of humidity and temperature have set the stage for fires which we have never seen before.

In the biblical story of Noah’s Ark, God is fed up with humans and causes the great flood. In our present time, we can make no such excuse. We are doing it all by ourselves. We are well on our way to a much more dangerous and less friendly world. But, as the final verse asserts, it doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s use our brains here.