"If I'm going to Hell, I'm going there playing the piano"
About this Quote
Brash as a barroom boast, Jerry Lee Lewis's line lands because it turns moral panic into stagecraft. "If I'm going to Hell" isn't a confession so much as a dare: a preemptive strike against the preachers, tastemakers, and scandal-hungry headlines that spent decades treating rock 'n' roll as a gateway drug with a backbeat. Lewis takes their accusation as a given, then refuses the shame. Fine, he implies, but I'm bringing the instrument.
The piano matters. In the early rock era, the keyboard was both respectable (parlor music, church hymns) and dangerous when Lewis attacked it like a demolition job. He doesn't say he's going to Hell singing or partying; he's going there playing. The subtext is that his sin is his art, and his art is inseparable from his appetite. That's the Jerry Lee mythos: the Sacred and the profane welded together, the Pentecostal kid who knew the rules intimately enough to violate them with flair.
The quote also reads like a self-authored epitaph built for a culture that loves punishment as entertainment. Lewis had real-world scandal (including the infamous underage marriage) and real-world piety in tension, and he understood how America frames musicians as cautionary tales. His twist is to reclaim the narrative: even in damnation, he gets the spotlight, the rhythm, the roar. It's defiance with a grin, and a reminder that rock 'n' roll's original charge wasn't rebellion as brand strategy; it was rebellion as fate.
The piano matters. In the early rock era, the keyboard was both respectable (parlor music, church hymns) and dangerous when Lewis attacked it like a demolition job. He doesn't say he's going to Hell singing or partying; he's going there playing. The subtext is that his sin is his art, and his art is inseparable from his appetite. That's the Jerry Lee mythos: the Sacred and the profane welded together, the Pentecostal kid who knew the rules intimately enough to violate them with flair.
The quote also reads like a self-authored epitaph built for a culture that loves punishment as entertainment. Lewis had real-world scandal (including the infamous underage marriage) and real-world piety in tension, and he understood how America frames musicians as cautionary tales. His twist is to reclaim the narrative: even in damnation, he gets the spotlight, the rhythm, the roar. It's defiance with a grin, and a reminder that rock 'n' roll's original charge wasn't rebellion as brand strategy; it was rebellion as fate.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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