{"id":944777,"date":"2026-05-07T23:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944777\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:03:13","slug":"the-1957-song-jerry-lee-lewis-worried-would-send-him-to-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944777\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1957 song Jerry Lee Lewis worried would send him to hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jerry<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Spotify<\/p>\n

One of the greatest rock and roll songs ever recorded almost never happened. That day in the studio, Jerry Lee Lewis<\/a> nearly robbed the world of an all-time classic.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, it wasn\u2019t 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.<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019d been thrown out of class exactly for playing his \u2018boogie-woogie\u2019 music, so his career had always come along with a moral dilemma for the God-fearing man now connected to the so-called devil\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

So when he arrived at Sun Records one day<\/a>, only to be presented with \u2018Great Balls of Fire\u2019, the moral struggle hit a fever pitch.<\/p>\n

Quite obviously, this was a song about hell, or about the sin of lust, as the lyrics go, \u201cYou broke my will, but what a thrill, Goodness gracious, great balls of fire\u201d. 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\u2019s land.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrother, I mean, you got to be so pure. No sin shall enter there. No sin. \u2019Cause it says no sin. It don\u2019t say, \u2018Just a little bit\u2019. It says \u2018No sin shall enter there\u2019,\u201d 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\u2019t sure if he could record it.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to walk and talk with God to go to heaven. You got to be so good,\u201d he continued, but ultimately, he seemed to decide that maybe he\u2019d talked with God enough to get away with one fiery rock and roll tune. <\/p>\n

The song was recorded, giving Lewis his biggest hit to date<\/a>, as it sold a million copies within the first ten days after being released. That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Spotify One of the greatest rock and roll songs ever recorded almost never happened.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[120976,263815,77,158428,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-944777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1950s","9":"tag-263815","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jerry-lee-lewis","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116535794922773509","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}