The figurative use of the expression 'great balls of fire' clearly evokes imagery of something portentous or, as current American terminology would have it, 'awesome'. The stars seemed in set in motion by incessant lines of shells coming across the heavens and great balls of fire flashed out on the eye from active cannon mouths. There are many citations in print of the sun or actual fire being referred to as a 'great ball of fire', for example, this report of the siege of Sebastopol, in The Times, November 1870: Of course, the southern states of the USA were, as they are still, a focal point of old style Christianity and somewhere that the 427 references to fire in the Old Testament would have been well known. There are a similarly large number of biblical references to fire being flung down from heaven, for example Revelation 20:9:Īnd they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. Jerry Lee's song lyric is a good distance from its biblical source. This might be the numerous references to a 'pillar of fire', for example, in Exodus 14:24:ĭuring the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. It derives from the many biblical references to the presence of God being indicated by a fire. 'Great balls of fire' originated as an expression in the southern states of the USA, around 1850. What's the origin of the phrase 'Great balls of fire'?

Great fire ball