Lava

Album: The B-52's (1979)
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Songfacts®:

  • This volcanic love song is the first track on Side 2 of the B-52s' self-titled debut album. It's erupting with sexual innuendo:

    My love's mountin'
    My love's erupting like a red hot volcano
    Fire, oh volcano, over you
    I gotta lotta lava love locked up inside me


    In her Songfacts interview, Cindy Wilson said Kate Pierson wrote the lyrics for this one. Wilson, Pierson and Fred Schneider share the lead vocals.
  • The line, "fire, fire, burning bright" almost certainly refers to The Tyger by English visionary, mystic, and poet William Blake. It's one of the most studied and esteemed poems in English literature, opening with the line, "Tyger, tyger, burning bright."
  • Oh, Krakatoa, east of Java, molten bodies, fiery lava

    The B-52s sing the lines "Krakatoa, East of Java" possibly in honor of the 1935 movie East Of Java. However, as pedants everywhere like to say, Krakatoa is actually to the west of Java. (It is located in the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia).

Comments: 1

  • Derek from ChicagoThe line "Krakatoa, East of Java" is more likely in reference to the 1968 film starring Maximillian Schell and Brian Keith, which was re-released as "Volcano" in the 1970s. The 1935 film is centered around a group of survivors shipwrecked on a tropical island, while the 1968 movie deals with a volcano and would have been more top of mind when the song was written in the late 1970s.
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