There is no cold part to a gas flame. What many of you are talking about is the area where the gas is ejected and as such has not ignited. This is not part of the flame. The coolest part of a gas flame is the yellow part (different types of gas produce different coloured flames remember). Feel free to place your finger, nipple, fringe into that part of the flame to see how cold it is.

But as the song is about fire and not flames we should focus on that. The centre of fire is of itself very hot. The material yet to ignite may either be very hot or very cold. It depends on what it is and where it is. Set fire to a bonfire and the inner materials have yet to reach a temperature where ignition takes place. They are not part of the fire. A lump of coal at its centre may be cooler than its burning outer but it sure as hell isn't going to be cold (depending on the size of lump!).

Fire is hot. It always is because that is what defines fire. A material reaches a set temperature and combustion takes place. Before that it isn't fire. After that it is. And it's hot. Very hot.

Prince isn't singing about fire he's singing about the materials yet to catch. And he just chose some words that rhymed. As NDRU pointed out, the eye of a storm perhaps would have been a better topic to focus his lyric on.

It's 9am and I'm always grumpy until at least 10am.

Okay, we all know what he is singing about and why, so should we put this thread to bed now?

ernestsewell said:

Perhaps - to me, its always been about supporting the imagery that "everything is not what it seems" - you look at a fire and assume the whole thing to be hot (a wise assumption, as you couldn't get to the cold part without burning yourself!), which, of course, is essentially the moral of the phrase "all that glitters, ain't gold". Not everything is as it seems and certainly not everything that looks good is necessarily so. I would suggest that taking the lyric to mean receiving the "cold shoulder" from people is probably over-extending it. Its just another way of expressing the caution of the tale - i.e. don't take things at face-value.

It is based on science - it is true that the center of a fire is relatively cold. If you have a pile of fuel, like coal, the temperature at the center of that fuel is quite cold, otherwise the entire amount would spontaneously combust. If you wanted to be pedantic, it all depends on the type of fire, fuel distribution and many other factors but, in your average fire, the center and points of ignition are cold in comparison.

Why is the centre being classed as the undesirable area? Fire's take lives and destroy property. It's not really a good thing half the time (of course the other half of the time it's an excellent thing). So for a respite from the heat head to the centre where it's cool and the unfavourable conditions of the outside are diminished.