Candles

The great earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 happened on All Saints Day, so there were candles everywhere and fire quickly spread.  Writers like Voltaire waxed cynical.

Remember the sitcom Maude?  There was one episode about her 50th birthday, when her birthday cake had fifty candles, so she blew them out with a hair dryer!

I also remember an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man involving the Bionic Boy.  At the end of the episode he blew out his birthday candles and was supposed to make a wish, but he said, "I have nothing to wish for.  Everything's perfect for me!" Ah, the world of cheesy '70s TV shows...

The nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons" ends with the lines:

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Some of those nursery rhymes are pretty violent, but most of us don't grow up to be psychopaths.

Elton John wrote the song "Candle in the Wind" about Marilyn Monroe, and later reworked it into "Goodbye, England's Rose" for Princess Diana.  When I was taking dance lessons at the Arthur Murray studio, I heard it in the most annoying form of all: "Goodbye, England's Rose" is waltz time!