On the subject of burning down playhouses...

I've noticed that the phrase "burn the playhouse down" appears in music and movies occasionally. The songs I've noted are "Bone of Contention" by Spirit of the West (it's on the Due South soundtrack, which was a great series by the way), "We Want a Rock" by They Might Be Giants, and "Burn Your Playhouse Down" by the Proclaimers. A quick search on Google yields several lesser known songs that use the phrase (well, admittedly these songs probably aren't that well known anyway). 

What made me think of it was I just saw the movie Shooter (great revenge flick), and the lead character used the phrase there. I'm curious about its origins and if it refers to an actual historical event (like many phrases come from) or if it was just made up because it sounded cool.

Speaking of setting fire to things. I swear Jacob Dylan (son of Bob Dylan, and lead singer for the Wallflowers) must be an arsonist at heart. The number of references to settings things on fire or things burning in Wallflowers songs is staggering. At some point I will generate actual statistics on this, but this will require me to have some free time to burn.