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One of the greatest rock and roll songs ever recorded almost never happened. That day in the studio, Jerry Lee Lewis nearly robbed the world of an all-time classic.
In the 1950s, it wasn’t just music going through intense change. The whole world, especially America, seemed to be in flux. As the Cold War dragged on and new conflicts emerged, the divide between generations grew wider. On one side were young people becoming more rebellious as the very idea of the teenager began to take shape, soon leading to sexual liberation and counterculture. On the other were strict, conservative and fearful parents.
From traditionalistic families, there was a growing sense of unease that everything was getting too sinful for their liking. Elvis Presley emerged with hips to scandalise, songs on the radio were getting more and more sexual, and as rock and roll appeared, drugs and sex seemed sure to follow.
At the centre of the conflict, there was Jerry Lee Lewis, a man who was both a rock and roller and a classic Southern American devotee who had studied at the Southwest Bible Institute. However, he’d been thrown out of class exactly for playing his ‘boogie-woogie’ music, so his career had always come along with a moral dilemma for the God-fearing man now connected to the so-called devil’s music.
So when he arrived at Sun Records one day, only to be presented with ‘Great Balls of Fire’, the moral struggle hit a fever pitch.
Quite obviously, this was a song about hell, or about the sin of lust, as the lyrics go, “You broke my will, but what a thrill, Goodness gracious, great balls of fire”. Written by Otis Blackwell, a songman known for his reductive lyrics, this was a step beyond. It was no longer just hitting at what Lewis saw as immorality, but was accepting it and happily heading on down to the devil’s land.
“Brother, I mean, you got to be so pure. No sin shall enter there. No sin. ’Cause it says no sin. It don’t say, ‘Just a little bit’. It says ‘No sin shall enter there’,” Lewis started ranting to Blackwell and anyone else in the studio who would listen. Pacing and stressed about the track, knowing it would be a hit but also not wanting to utter such sin, he wasn’t sure if he could record it.
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“You got to walk and talk with God to go to heaven. You got to be so good,” he continued, but ultimately, he seemed to decide that maybe he’d talked with God enough to get away with one fiery rock and roll tune.
The song was recorded, giving Lewis his biggest hit to date, as it sold a million copies within the first ten days after being released. That’s something any artist would celebrate, but no doubt for Lewis, it came along with a side serving of slight guilt that maybe he was spreading the devil around on those seven inches.
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