My name’s Ola and I am an English teacher.

This podcast is for you if you’re an English learner who wants to speak English with more confidence and get rid of speaking barriers. It’s time you started speaking English fearlessly! Go to my website for full transcripts and worksheets to each episode. Happy learning! 

Hello, welcome back, it’s great to talk to you again, thank you for choosing to spend this time with me. Today you’ll learn some vocabulary from the iconic country hit ‘Ring of Fire’. Just a quick reminder, please repeat all the lyrics and extra sentences aloud. Use your voice, hear yourself. This is the core of all the episodes I release. I’d like you to start speaking. 

Let’s break down today’s episode. First, we’ll look at some song facts and try to understand what’s behind these short lyrics. Then we’ll go through it line by line. We’re going to have a closer look at some words, we’re gonna expand it by adding some more collocations as well as whole sentences. Repeat them all. 

If you’re interested in why I’m doing this, I mean, why I’m focusing on song lyrics and why it’s a valuable source of language go to teacherola.com/3. In that episode, you’ll learn what are the 5 steps to use song lyrics as an efficient tool. Teacherola.com/3. And now, let’s talk about Johnny Cash, shall we?

Saying it’s one of the greatest hits of Cash’s career is an understatement. The story of this song is quite complex. It’s rooted in poetry. 

June Carter wrote the lyrics about her relationship with Johnny Cash.  He was involved in drugs and had a very unsettled lifestyle. She wrote the song while driving around one night, worried about Cash’s ways fully aware that she couldn’t resist him. “There is no way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns,” she wrote. 

Johnny claimed that June saved his life by helping him get off drugs. 

The first version of the song didn’t reach that high level of success. 

Johnny Cash’s version from 1964 begins with the mariachi style trumpets, right? He claimed that he had a dream where the horn part played over the song.

It was the biggest hit of his career. Outstanding commercial success. 

Now, my dear friend, we’re going to go through the lyrics, line by line. Listen and repeat.

Love is a burning thing

And it makes a fiery ring

Bound by wild desire

I fell into a ring of fire

a burning thing – burning means ‘on fire’, that’s pretty obvious. I wanted to give you some extra collocations with the adjective ‘burning’. Repeat after me:

My burning ambition is to speak English with confidence.

The transmission has always been a burning issue for scientists interested in studying this epidemic.

The burning questions are still unanswered.

a fiery ring – a fiery has several meanings. Fiery means red or orange, looking like fire. Second meaning: easily getting excited or angry and the third meaning is: encouraging anger os excitement. Let’s see some examples of collocations. Repeat after me:

Fiery red hair.

Fiery red autumn leaves.

A fiery sunset.

She has a fiery temper.

He delivered the speech with a fiery passion.

A fiery and heated meeting

bound by wild desire – if two people or groups are bound together by something, they share a particular experience or situation that causes them to have a relationship. To be united. Example sentences:

The two nations were bound together by a common history.

We are not bound by the decision.

Let’s move on to the next verse.

I fell into a burning ring of fire

I went down, down, down and the flames went higher

And it burns, burns, burns

The ring of fire, the ring of fire

Ok

I fell into a burning ring of fire – if ou fall int something, you move somewhere quickly by relaxing your body and letting it fall on something. Let’s see this in a sentence:

She fell into bed, exhausted. 

He turned and fell into her arms.

I went down – to go down has so many meanings we could as well have a whole episode only about it. Let’s instead focus on three main meanings. to go down means to fall down to the ground. If prices go down, they become lower. It can also be used to talk about the quality or standard of something. Let’s practice:

His income went down last year.

Computers have gone down in price.

She tripped and went down with a bump.

The neighbourhood has gone down a lot recently.

Moving on to the last verse:

The taste of love is sweet

When hearts like ours meet

I fell for you like a child

Oh, but the fire went wild

taste of love – here I’d like to make sure to remember to pronounce this word with the sound /a/. /Love/. Repeat:

I love you.

Love is blind.

I love the way she sings that song.

I love it.

I’m loving it.

A love song.

A love story.

I fell for you – to fall for someone means to fall in love with someone. Fall – fell – fallen. If you fall for something you’re tricked into believing something that is not true. For instance:

He is too smart to fall for that trick.

I’m surprised you fell for that trick.

Last summer and met and fell for Lucy.

They fell for each other instantly.

the fire went wild – to go wild. Two meanings here. The first one: to behave in a very excited and uncontrolled way. The second meaning: to get very angry. Sentences:

The stock market went wild today.

The crowd went wild as soon as the shops were opened.

When I heard how much it was going to cost, I just went wild.

Thanks a bunch! Good job! Thanks for staying with me till the end of this episode.  Now, go to teacherola.com/39 and download the worksheet. Play the song, listen to the lyrics and complete the missing words. Finally, sing along! 

If you think this podcast is valuable, share your opinion in the comment at teacherola.com/39 and tell your friends about me. 

In the next episode, we’re going to come back to grammar and our favourite: conditionals. Subscribe my podcast to make sure you won’t miss it. Thank you for listening and till next time! Happy learning. Bye!