Heaven's On Fire

Do you remember the "Here are the doors, here is the steeple, open the doors and here are the people" hand/chant church game???

Here is an example if you don't, or if you had parents who spared you the childhood church-going experience.



When I was about 9, un-cool make-up free Kiss released "Heaven's on Fire."

I'd never liked going to church and was in the nascent stages of agnosticism, when I first heard this song. As such, the juxtaposition of raging flames against my gauzy white robed image of heavenly boredom was titillating. I knew my mother and the other church-loving ladies of Sunday would not approve of this song, a fact confirmed when I decided to change up the sing songy "Here is the Church" rhyme by having the people belt into the chorus of "Heaven's on Fire" as soon as "the doors" were opened. My creative mash-up was met with looks of disapproval when first shared with my sweet as peach pie Sunday School teacher Mrs. Jones. But, when I took my mash-up to the secular playground at Harney Elementary School, my KISS worshipping church goer phalanges were a mild comic success.

Clearly a little satan with your gospel was a good thing. Elvis had proved that years before. But I learned this lesson by mixing bad era KISS with a church rhyme.