A legendary rock song by the equally legendary early 70's rock band, Deep Purple. It is praised for it's quickly catchy beat, easy to learn lyrics, and it's Godliness all around. Considered by many as one of the best rock songs ever, and a favorite of many Deep Purple fans. A few other songs as good as this one are "Space Truckin'", "Fireball", "Black Knight", and "Demon's Eye".
Old folks from the country, generally in the south, use to say on nights where there was mist/fog over a swamp, pond, river or lake that the devil was raising hell under water. The saying "there is going to be smoke on the water tonight" came from that and means something is about to go down or someone is getting ready to raise hell. The saying predates the rock song by deep purples but I doubt they intended that meaning in their song. I believe their song is about a fire at a hotel.
If them MFs don't have my money theres gonna be some smoke on the water. I.e. I'm gonna raise hell.
An influential rock song telling the story of a real event in Montreux, Switzerland.
Down there is the first verse.
We all came out to montreux
On the lake geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didnt have much time
Frank Zappa and the mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky