Sex on fire

"Your sex is on fire!" shouted Caleb Followill, lead singer of Kings of Leon, out of the car stereo.

"What is 'sex on fire', Mama?" asked my six-year-old daughter from the back seat.

Oh, God, I thought. "It's making love," I said.

"What is 'making love'?" asked my daughter.

"When two people want to make a baby, they make love." I answered. "And only then!" I almost added.

"What's a baby?" she asked.

All right: now she was being silly, and making fun of me and my efforts to explain a song title that doesn't make sense to a lot of people — like Michael McIntyre in the video clip below. I decided on a different strategy.

"Well, he's not really singing 'sex on fire', I said. "People think he is, but actually he's singing, 'Your socks are on fire'."

My daughter laughed and started singing along with the man in the radio: "Your socks are on fire!"

Of course, on fire can mean burning, but I don't think that's what Kings of Leon mean. In the song, on fire means "really rather enjoyable" — but that's not the language of rock and roll, is it?