Bonfire Night Songs: A Playlist for the Garden Party

The short answer

Bonfire Night 2026 is Thursday 5 November, so most garden parties land on the Thursday or the weekend after it. A Bonfire Night playlist needs three parts, not one long list:

1. Sparklers and food, before the fire is lit: upbeat songs the kids know, like "Firework" by Katy Perry, "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz or BTS, and "Great Balls of Fire".
2. The fireworks: turn the music right down or off. You will not hear it anyway, and the person lighting the fireworks needs to hear the people around them. If you want one piece, play Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, which was written for exactly this.
3. Round the fire afterwards: the grown-ups' list. "Ring of Fire", "Burning Down the House", "We Didn't Start the Fire", "Set Fire to the Rain", Kasabian's "Fire".

Put the speaker outside and keep the phone indoors by a window, on a charger. And if you have a dog, set up a second, quiet playlist inside for them. Both are explained below.

Who this is for

You are hosting a few families in the back garden for Bonfire Night: a small bonfire or a fire pit, a box of fireworks from the supermarket, sparklers for the kids, jacket potatoes or hot dogs. You have a Bluetooth speaker and your phone, and you want music that fits the night without spending an evening on it.

The night is very British, but not only British. Guy Fawkes Night is also kept in parts of New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland (Wikipedia). It marks the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes was arrested on 5 November guarding explosives under the House of Lords, and an Act of Parliament made the day an annual thanksgiving the following January. That Act was repealed in 1859. The bonfires stayed.

If you are going to a council or school display instead of hosting, you do not need a playlist. You need warm socks.

Before the fire: songs for sparklers and food

This is the part with the most kids and the most light, so pick songs people know in the first five seconds. All of these are about fire, fireworks or light, which makes the list feel like it belongs to the night.

• "Firework", Katy Perry, from Teenage Dream (2010) (Wikipedia))
• "Dynamite", Taio Cruz (2010) (Wikipedia))
• "Dynamite", BTS (2020), the band's first song fully recorded in English (Wikipedia))
• "Fireflies", Owl City (2009) (Wikipedia))
• "Great Balls of Fire", Jerry Lee Lewis (1957) (Wikipedia)
• "A Sky Full of Stars", Coldplay (2014) (Wikipedia)
• "Rocket Man", Elton John (1972), No. 2 in the UK (Wikipedia))
• "Shout", the Isley Brothers' 1959 original, or Lulu's 1964 cover, which reached No. 7 in the UK (Wikipedia))
• "Come On Eileen", Dexys Midnight Runners (1982) (Wikipedia)
• "Uptown Funk", Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars (2014) (Wikipedia)

Ten songs is about 40 minutes, which is roughly how long it takes for the food to come out and the sparklers to run out. Put it on repeat in case the fire is slow to catch.

When the fireworks start: turn it down

This is the one part of the night where the right amount of music is close to none.

You will not hear it. The RSPCA says fireworks can reach 120 to 175 decibels (RSPCA). A garden speaker does not compete with that, and turning it up to try just annoys the neighbours between bangs.

The person lighting the fireworks needs to hear. Someone shouting "stand back" or a child running the wrong way matters more than the chorus. Pause the music before the first fuse is lit.

If you want one piece of music for the display, make it Music for the Royal Fireworks. Handel wrote it in 1749 for a fireworks display in London's Green Park, celebrating the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. More than 12,000 people were said to have come to the public rehearsal at Vauxhall Gardens, and on the night itself, rain caused misfires and a pavilion caught fire (Wikipedia). The fourth movement, "La Réjouissance", is about three minutes of trumpets and drums: play it as the countdown, then let the fireworks take over.

Mind the time. In England and Wales, adult fireworks cannot be set off between 11 pm and 7 am, but on 5 November the cut-off moves to midnight (The Fireworks Regulations 2004, reg. 7). That extension is for the night of the 5th only. If your party is on Saturday the 7th, the limit is 11 pm. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules.

Round the fire: the grown-ups' list

Once the fireworks are done and the kids are inside with hot chocolate, the fire is the centre of the garden and the music can be more for the adults. Again, every song is about fire or burning, which is the joke and the point.

• "Ring of Fire", written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore, made famous by Johnny Cash in 1963 (Wikipedia))
• "Burning Down the House", Talking Heads (1983) (Wikipedia)
• "We Didn't Start the Fire", Billy Joel (1989), which runs through 119 events from 1949 to 1989 at speed (Wikipedia)
• "Disco Inferno", the Trammps (1976), later on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (Wikipedia)
• "Set Fire to the Rain", Adele, from 21 (2011) (Wikipedia)
• "Fire", Kasabian (2009), which reached No. 3 in the UK (Wikipedia))
• "Burn", Ellie Goulding (2013) (Wikipedia))
• "Girl on Fire", Alicia Keys (2012) (Wikipedia))
• "Bonfire Heart", James Blunt (2013), co-written with Ryan Tedder (Wikipedia)
• "Heat Waves", Glass Animals (2020) (Wikipedia)
• "Sparks", Coldplay, from Parachutes (2000), for when the fire burns down (Wikipedia))
• "Light My Fire", the Doors (1967). Wikipedia notes its "erotic lyrics", so keep it for later in the evening (Wikipedia)
• "Firestarter", the Prodigy (1996), their first UK No. 1, and loud. Only if the neighbours are at the party (Wikipedia))

Some of these have words you may not want a seven-year-old repeating. Listen through anything you are unsure of before the night. Music apps, ours included, cannot filter out one line in a second verse.

Where do the speaker and the phone go?

The speaker goes outside, well away from the fire and the fireworks, somewhere it will not be knocked over in the dark. A table by the back door is usually right. If rain is forecast and the speaker is not water resistant, keep it under cover.

The phone stays indoors, on a charger, on a windowsill close to the speaker. That keeps it dry, keeps it charged, and keeps it out of the pocket of the person lighting fireworks. If the music cuts out when the back door shuts, move the phone closer.

On a frosty night, keep the phone inside regardless. Apple says iPhone is designed for use between 0 °C and 35 °C, and that below that range the battery can run down faster for a while and the phone may switch itself off (Apple Support).

Before the first guest arrives: set Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock to Never for the evening, plug the phone in, and turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center so a text alert does not play across the garden. A phone call that gets through will still pause the music.

Do not forget the dog

If you have a pet, the most useful playlist of the night might be the one indoors. The RSPCA's advice for dogs and cats includes closing windows and curtains to muffle the bangs, walking dogs in daylight, giving them a safe space to hide, and putting on music or the TV to help mask the noise (RSPCA: keep pets safe during fireworks). The RSPCA also partners with Classic FM's Pet Classics, which plays calming classical music on fireworks evenings.

In practice: an old phone, a tablet or a smart speaker in the room where the dog will be, playing something calm and steady, started before it gets dark. Not your party playlist, and not through the same speaker. Your neighbours' pets will thank you for the 11 pm cut-off too.

Building it in Trending Music

Trending Music is our app, so weigh this section accordingly. You can find the songs above in it and build the playlists for free.

1. Make two playlists: "Bonfire: Sparklers" and "Bonfire: Round the Fire". Search for the first song, tap the ••• on its row (or press and hold the row), choose Add to Playlist, then New Playlist, type the name and tap Create. For every song after that, choose Add to Playlist and pick the playlist under Your Playlists.
2. Add "La Réjouissance" on its own at the end of the first playlist, so it is ready for the countdown.
3. Turn off Autoplay in the app's Settings, then Playback. Otherwise similar music keeps playing when your list ends, and nobody will be standing by the phone to stop it during the fireworks.

One honest catch. The free version of Trending Music is supported by ads. An ad can appear between songs, never part-way through one, and it pauses the music while it is up. On a night when the phone is inside on a windowsill, that means a short silence in the garden until someone taps it closed. Either check the phone when you go in for the food, or use Premium, which removes ads.

When a playlist from your phone is the wrong tool

• A school, PTA, club or village bonfire is a public event. In the UK, music played outside a domestic setting counts as a public performance, and PPL PRS sells a licence for it, including temporary cover for one-off events (TheMusicLicence). Consumer music apps, ours included, are made for personal listening, not for an event's PA system. Ask the organiser how the music is licensed.
• If you already pay for Spotify or Apple Music, use that. Paid tiers have no ads, and everything about the speaker, the phone and the dog still applies.
• If the fireworks are a choreographed show set to music, with cues timed to the beat, that is a job for a professional display company, not a garden playlist.

What music do you play on Bonfire Night?

Most people play songs about fire, fireworks and light: "Firework" by Katy Perry, "Dynamite", "Great Balls of Fire", "Ring of Fire", "Burning Down the House" and "We Didn't Start the Fire". For something traditional during the display itself, Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749) was written for a fireworks show.

What time do fireworks have to stop on Bonfire Night?

In England and Wales, midnight on 5 November. On other nights of the year the cut-off is 11 pm, with 1 am allowed on New Year's Eve, Diwali and the first day of Chinese New Year (The Fireworks Regulations 2004, reg. 7). If your party is on the weekend after the 5th, the 11 pm limit applies.

Before the night

Build the two playlists, listen through the grown-ups' one, and charge the speaker the afternoon before. Then plug the phone in by the window, set Auto-Lock to Never, and set up the dog's room before it gets dark.

Diwali is on Sunday 8 November this year, three days later, and has its own fireworks. If you are hosting that too, our Diwali party playlist has the songs. Still putting the porch together for Saturday? Our Halloween music for trick-or-treaters guide covers the same speaker-outside, phone-inside setup for 31 October.

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