Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll

What?? Nobody's commented on this yet?? Jeez...BOC really deserves more attention.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what this means. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the bad reputation that rock and roll has with some some older people...the lyrics seem to speak of the genre as a forbidden thing...

It almost seems like it's sarcasm, saying that rock and roll is destroying our society or something. But then when "let the girl" lines come in, you see the real opinion without the sarcasm...

shrugs But my guess is as good as anybody's.

This is probably the heaviest and darkest BOC track. It's an absolute scorcher as the name may imply. I think it's all about the decadence of rock n' roll pretty much, and also the monolithic, detached, and monstrously obscure spin that BOC themselves are giving it.

'Gardens of nocturne, forbidden delights Reins of steel, and it's alright'

• Quintessential BOC right there.

My favourite lines -

'Three thousand guitars they seem to cry My ears will melt, and then my eyes'

• that's some violently volcanic, molten rock right there!

You're pretty much spot on. Much of BOCs work is sarcastic and in reference to corruption of the earth by various forces brought here by aliens. At least much of there early work up to and through Imaginos. For another "Rock n Roll is corruption" song listen to "Dominance and Submission".

guitar solos are just great in this song.

I think it's about gangs with guitars, and his girlfriend plays for him, and start a riot with guitars.

Black Sabbath - Behind the Wall of Sleep

It may be about rocking out hard. I mean lyrics like, "Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry. My ears will melt, then my eyes." That must give us a clue that it's about rockin' out in cities.

It's about seeing rock grow throughout England like a spreading fire..... Blue Oyster Cult has a bunch of analogies like that!

The whole "evil in rock music" thing that was going on in the 80s with Tipper Gore and the Peters brothers probably wasn't as prevalent in the early 70s, but Black Sabbath most assuredly stirred up some shit. I think this is a classic BOC spin on Sabbath's perceived image by the "moral majority". I can almost picture an Ishir? Honda movie where Satan cataclysmically unleashes his influence through rockin' guitar-wielding hottie babes who seduce the Minoru Genda / Kameto Kurojima types into starting a nuclear holocaust (melting the ears & eyes). BOC is like a booster shot for the imagination. Or something...

Marshall amps and Fender guitars ftw.

It simply seems to me that rocker is saying that he's a naughty boy & let the girls come to the shows so he can have their way with them.