Fire. It's a primitive thing. One of the four ancient elements. It can light up your life or burn you to death. And it's been the inspiration behind many a song.

As we brace ourselves for a night of fireworks and burning Guys, we at Shout4Music have compiled a list of some of the most incendiary songs about flames, infernos and conflagrations. Just call us the firestarters. Twisted, twisted firestarters.

Fuming we've missed out your fiery favourite? Let us know at the bottom of the page.

Broken Social Scene – 'Fire Eyed Boy'

The best band ever...possibly. Download here.   (Don McKinlay)

Vashti Bunyan - 'The Fire'

To hear reclusive folk icon Vashti crooning lines from a Bukowski poem causes chills in unknown places. This haunting number shimmers along on beautiful piano, glock and guitar lines. As ever, the star is her soft, ethereal voice, truly one of the most glorious on this earth. Download here.  (Mark Nicholls)

The Cure – 'Fire In Cairo'

I've never really been too keen on the Cure - even as a teenager - but I absolutely love this song. Tip: to make this song profoundly relevant and apt, find yourself a wormhole and travel back to Tahrir Square in January/February of this year. Download here. (Christopher Moffatt)

The Ghost Frequency – 'Money On The Fire'

Unfortunately, The Ghost Frequency are no longer together which really is a shame seeing as they were a pretty great band. 'Money On The Fire' has this incredible guitar line and pounding beat throughout, making it highly memorable. I was lucky enough to see the band a few years ago and this was the song I couldn't get out of my head for days afterwards. Listen here.  (Arusa Qureshi)

Kasabian – 'Fire'

A rather obvious one, perhaps, but one with certain memories for me. A couple of years back I fell off a quad bike on a stag do. Rather than go to A+E, I continued, like a fool, with the celebrations, winding up at a club in Southampton where this song blasted out over the sound system. Half drunk, half in agony with what turned out to be a broken collar bone, I shouted along to this at the top of my voice. Cathartic. Download here. (Stephen Morris)

Niney The Observer – 'Blood and Fire'

Sampled by PJ Harvey in her most recent album Let England Shake, 'Blood and Fire' suitably evokes the themes of war and decay that she sought to examine with that record.  In it's own right it's a wonderfully strident reggae track that turns the heat all the way up. Download here.  (Alan Ashton-Smith)

The Ruts – 'Babylon's Burning'

Opening with a fire alarm and then the siren of a fire engine, 'Babylon's Burning' is full of urgency and unstoppable energy. Like many punk songs, it's an angry tune: a war cry against ignorance, hatred and intolerance. It's 32 years old but shows no signs of ageing. Download here. (Stephen Morris)

The Stereophonics - 'A Thousand Trees'

Back in the days before these lads from Cwamaman started filling stadia with their whining about their lives a famous rock stars, The Stereophonics produced eloquent thumb nail sketches of small town life. This song is typical, using fire as a metaphor for the spreading of rumours of a possible paedophile in the community: 'only takes one tree to make a thousand matches/only takes one match to burn a thousand trees.' Download here. (Stephen Morris)

U2 – 'One'

This song always sees fire in that 80,000 fuckwits in a football stadium simultaneously get their lighters out. So if we could get a squadron of Apache gunships to carry a 2 mile wide can of deodorant over the crowd, scoosh it, therefore consuming the gig in a fireball that could be seen from space – and therefore serve as a warning to Bon Jovi et al – then that. Download here. (Alaster Kirk)