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therecordconnection · 1 year ago

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Ranting and Raving: “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult

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(Warning: The following essay includes a brief discussion regarding the topic of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.)

“What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man?”

These words are spoken by Death in Terry Pratchett’s 1991 novel, Reaper Man, the eleventh entry in his wildly popular Discworld fantasy series. This argument comes as Death is arguing with Azrael, the Death of Universes, about why he needs to care about the humans on the Discworld he is tasked with taking away. If he doesn’t care, then there is only oblivion and there is no comfort to be found in death. It’s wrong to meddle with the natural order of the world, but that doesn’t mean the reaper man shouldn’t be allowed to tend to his harvest with care. Azrael accepts this argument and gives Death his job back on the spot.

One of the main plots of Reaper Man is about Death being fired from his job of, well, being Death, by the Auditors of Reality, who believe Death’s growing interest in how humans conduct themselves is in direct conflict with his duty as the undertaker. He isn’t supposed to care about humans and yet, for some strange reason that even he doesn’t know, he does. Across five novels in the series (Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time, written between 1987-2001), Death (and later on, his granddaughter, Susan Sto Helit) features as struggling with understanding humans and trying to figure out why they are the way that they are.

In Reaper Man, with Death out of a job and forced to grapple with the fact that he is now mortal and living on borrowed time, he finds himself working on the farm of Miss. Renata Flitworth (because he finds that his skills with a scythe translate well to farming). He takes on a new identity as good old Bill Door, learning how to help her tend to and bring in the harvest, as well as learn about complex human emotions such as anxiety (the ticking of clocks suddenly bothers him), fear (what happens when even Death must face the end?), and the human compulsion and tendency to meddle with the affairs of the natural order when they find it unfair (a little girl gets trapped in a fire and Death initially shrugs it off and argues meddling is against the rules... only to be told that’s rubbish by Miss. Flitworth). The climax of the book features Death/Bill Door having to face the New Death, a tyrant who wears a crown and sees himself as a ruler of the dead, rather than Discworld Death viewing his job as a necessary task. Pratchett’s Death doesn’t kill you, he’s simply your escort to the Great Beyond when your time is up. In Discworld, Death is like a garbage person collecting your garbage each week or an Uber driver taking you to your new destination when it’s time to go. His anger at the New Death viewing the job like a king of something pisses him off greatly, to the point that when he defeats the New Death, his only words are, “No crown. Only the harvest.”

What does any of this have to do with Blue Öyster Cult? Quite a lot, actually. Pratchett very clearly loved “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and thought their views on death held a great deal of weight. The song is referenced in Discworld as being the Death/Sto Helit family mantra: Non Temetis Messor, which translates to “Have no timidity concerning He who gathers the harvest.” But if you find that’s too much of a mouthful for you, you could always try this version on for size:

“Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

For the uninitiated, Blue Öyster Cult are still to this day a massively underrated rock band in my eyes. They are just a fantastic, hard rocking band known for great, melodic, in-your-face guitar jams, strange fantasy and science-fiction infused lyrics, and just being a bunch of good ol’ boys from Long Island, NY who wrote catchy as hell songs highlighting some of history’s scariest creatures, such as Godzilla and Joan Crawford. They’re known for those songs, along with the classic rock radio staples “Cities on Flame (With Rock n’ Roll),” and “Burnin’ For You,” but it’s “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” that has thrived and lived the longest and healthiest life. Horror movies and television still love using it to this day (Halloween (1978), Scream, the television series Supernatural, to name a few appearances), Stephen King quoted it in his novel The Stand, although he quoted it wrong. (Ooo... Sorry, Stephen! We were looking for, “Come on, baby, don’t fear the reaper”, not “Come on, Mary, don’t fear the reaper.” Who’s Mary, Steve?)

But I would be remiss to leave my cowbell players behind by not mentioning that a ton of people probably still think of that one very famous SNL skit whenever they hear this song. I’m willing to bet that if your parents didn’t teach you about Blue Öyster Cult, or you didn’t find them on your own musical travels, that sketch most likely did the job. But I ask that you put a pin in that cowbell for now. Understand that I DO have a fever, but we can’t talk about that cowbell just yet.

In the wake of my father’s very unexpected passing back in November (which I wrote about during the Ranting and Raving post on the Beatles’ “Free As a Bird”) I was looking for any healthy distraction or thing to try and help me cope and either forget or ease the pain that comes with losing a parent. So, naturally, I decided that reading Terry Pratchett’s novels starring Death was the best idea. Through the charm and wit of his novels, they’ve helped greatly with keeping me going, Reaper Man especially. Never before Reaper Man have I read any book that made death and the people left to remember someone who has been lost sound more lovely:

“In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence."

Pratchett’s views of death, as well as his version of the grim reaper, are the most optimistic portrayals I’ve ever seen. If Death truly exists to take us to the other side, I can only hope Pratchett’s version of him is the one we get. Since reading Discworld for the first time, it’s gotten me to think about my other favorite version of the reaper man: Blue Öyster Cult’s portrayal of him in “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.”

The seventies had no shortage of hit songs about the topic of death and these range from the great (“Seasons of the Sun” by Terry Jacks, “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John, “The Great Gig in the Sky” by Pink Floyd) to the nihilistic (“Dust in the Wind” by Kansas) to the ones about animals and objects dying (“Shannon,” a song about a dead dog, by Henry Gross and “The Wreck of the Edumund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot) to the downright horrible (“American Pie” by Don McLean, an absolutely dogshit song that I fucking despise). Of all the songs written on the topic of death during the decade, B.Ö.C. easily ended up writing the song about facing death and mortality with grace, to the point where I’d be willing to argue that we never need another song written about the topic ever again. What the Cult managed to capture in 1976 is nothing short of pure genius. A once-in-a-lifetime song that you’re lucky if you ever get close to writing once. It’s a song that could be used to explain to the aliens what classic rock is, it’s that fucking good. I’ve heard this song on the radio, in public, in television and movies, probably over three-hundred times at this point in my life and I’m still not sick of this song yet. I’m sure there are people who have lived longer than me that are tired of it and I’m sure the cowbell jokes get really annoying for some fans, but this shit still hits real hard and I still think those jokes are funny.

However, in order to really talk about this song, we need to highlight its writer, guitarist/vocalist Donald Roeser, better known by his stage name “Buck Dharma” (which is how he’ll be referred from here on out).

Buck Dharma, a name he chose when the band, in its infancy, initially kicked around the idea of everybody being known by a science fiction pseudonym. The band members very quickly thought this idea was stupid, but Buck didn’t and rolled with it. Besides being the Cult’s explosive lead guitar player and occasional lead vocalist, he also has the distinction of being the guy who wrote their two major Top 40 hits, “Burnin’ For You” in 1981, and “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.” If you want to pick a “main attraction” when it comes to the band, Buck is it. Outstanding guitarist, really melodic writer who knows how to find a great hook, and a pretty decent singer as far as seventies rock bands go. He’s got a good number of strengths that he brings to the table and they all show up wonderfully on this song.

There are just some songs that you listen to for the first time and you just know you’re listening to something that was thoroughly stamped as a hit before it was even released. You listen to a band’s Greatest Hits CD and you hear that one song that stands out against the rest, the one that couldn’t define them any better. That’s what “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” is to this band. Just a fantastic song from start to finish. As soon as you hear those opening notes, you’re just like, “Oh yeah... that’s that real shit. The stuff that the streets have been f i e n d i n g for.” In an interview with Youtube channel BANGERTV, band manager/producer Sandy Pearlman credits the song’s success to the fact the guitar chords being “magic chords,” and they absolutely are. You hear that opening guitar part once and you’ll hum it for the rest of the day. It grabs you immediately and leads you so smoothly into the rest of the song when the rest of the band kicks in and the song starts going. This all happens within ten seconds! The band wastes no time and we’re all better for it. You can hear those opening chords throughout the song and they never become bothersome. You play those opening bars just once in a Guitar Center and everybody knows what you just did. That’s how good it is.

Pearlman also revealed in that interview that when the demo was brought in, some of the guys in the band thought it was “too much of a pop song” for B.Ö.C., but Pearlman rejected that notion and claimed it was a hit.

You’d have to be an idiot not to hear that this song has it all and then some.

Beyond those central chords, the vocal melody and harmonies between the band members is exquisite. Buck’s voice was the right choice to lead this song. He has the softest and most calming voice out of everyone in the band and it really helps sell the lyrics, which as we’ve established are all about acceptance of the inevitability of death and welcoming it with open arms. Dharma sings the song almost like a monk who’s trying to impart arcane wisdom upon you.

The way the band harmonizes on the “All our times have come / Here but now they're gone” is just so eulogistic and beautiful in its delivery. What follows is just pure rock poetry:

Seasons don't fear the reaper Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain We can be like they are

It’s sublime. It’s fantastic. It’s another agreeable adjective. Not since the spoken word segment of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky” had there been such a succinct piece of wisdom on how to face the inevitable. It’s simple eloquence, but eloquence all the same. If you choose to hear this song from the perspective of the reaper himself (which is how I tend to hear it) then it only makes the chorus of the song all the sweeter:

Come on, baby (don't fear the reaper) Baby, take my hand (don't fear the reaper) We'll be able to fly (don't fear the reaper) Baby, I'm your man

Buck’s delivery is so warm and enticing that nobody could fear the reaper when he sounds like that. Buck’s reaper sounds the way Pratchett’s reaper man sounds: kind, benevolent, the voice of someone who cares about you. If there is comfort to be found in death then we can only hope the one that leads us to the Great Beyond sounds like this. The phrases “Take my hand” and “We’ll be able to fly” paint getting a call from Death and dying as the next great adventure (which is exactly how Death describes being made mortal in Reaper Man: "It will be a great adventure ... I should like to learn for myself. I shall have experiences. At last."

In a 2019 interview with Songfacts, Dharma spoke about the inspiration for the song’s lyrics, which were inspired by his own struggles with having to face mortality at an early-ish age:

It was sort of inspired by a personal health scare - I thought I was going to maybe not live that long. I had been diagnosed with a heart condition, and your mind starts running away with you - especially when you're young-ish. So, that's why I wrote the story. It's imagining you can survive death in terms of your spirit. Your spirit will prevail.

The delivery of the song is what makes it one of the band’s best. That kindness and that warmth, from both the music and the vocals. Both work in tandem with each other to offer a way to face death without the panic of wondering when it will happen and, more importantly, where we go after we die. Contrast the original with the Goo Goo Dolls awful version of it from 1987. There are great punk renditions of classic rock songs, but this sure as hell ain’t one of them. Everything that makes the song great is absent in it. For starters, it’s played way too fast, while the Cult settle in on a very good and precise groove (more on that in a moment). Second, those gentle and calming guitar chords that set the foundation for the entire song are replaced with this ugly repetitive thrashing that has no rhyme or reason. Finally, Johnny Rzeznik’s absolutely horrid vocal delivery removes any kindness from the song’s lyrics and just makes them grossly sarcastic and mean-spirited. In short, it sucks, but it does provide a good argument for what makes the song work so well.

Let’s step back and talk about the overall tempo of the song, because that’s a key ingredient to this song’s success. This is the kind of song that has to be played at just the right speed or the whole thing is fucked. Play it too slow and the listener/audience gets bored. Play it too fast and nobody knows what the hell is going on anymore and the whole thing gears up for a trainwreck. If only there was something that was helping this song keep perfect time!

It’s finally time to talk about the most important instrument on this song: that cowbell.

"I'm telling ya, fellas, you're gonna want that cowbell on the track." These words are spoken by Christopher Walken, playing the band’s completely fictional producer, Bruce Dickinson (in reality, the song, and all of the Agents of Fortune album, was produced collectively between Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman, and David Lucas). I should also point out that the band did NOT have a dedicated cowbell player and the identity of which person in the Cult’s team played it is still up for debate. The liner notes for the album don’t properly credit it and who exactly played it depends upon what article you find talking about it. This Washington Post article from 2005 claims Albert Bouchard did it (makes sense, he was the drummer after all). This Financial Times article from 2021 also claims Bouchard did it. But wait! There’s this one from 2009, which claimed Eric Bloom was the cowbell player. Then there was this one from 2011 that claimed co-producer David Lucas did it. I mean, at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter who did it (especially since Dharma has said that none of them exactly remember who did it), because all you have to do is just smack a bell in time with the music. If Will Ferrell can do it on a sketch comedy bit, so can any of us.

But man, for a musical idea that was more or less added at the eleventh hour, that cowbell sure has become beloved, hasn’t it?

It’s actually present throughout the entire song, it just gets buried in the mix after about fifteen seconds. In that interview with Sandy Pearlman, he explains that everybody noticed the cowbell so much due to the compression that came with the song being played on radio. The compression caused the cowbell to be pushed to the front of the mix and make it sound like it’s a more key component than it really is. If the genesis of that SNL skit began anywhere, it was probably due to that more than anything. On modern hardware, it gets buried so fast that you only really hear it at two different points (at the beginning of the song and at the start of the second half).

"I'm telling ya, fellas, you're gonna want that cowbell on the track." Bruce Dickinson is absolutely right, because beyond the jokes, it does serve a genuine purpose in the song: it keeps time and it sounds like the ticking of a clock, which would be an important thing for Death to keep track of. That constant cowbell ticking away like a clock also adds an anxiety to the song, a subtle reminder that the clock of life is ticking away for all of us. Nothing else in the song provides that sense of looming dread that’s attached with fear of death, so you notice its inclusion immediately. All it’s doing is its job. It’s ticking and keeping time, but musically, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the song. It absolutely sounds like an overdub added at the last second after the song was already recorded and done. And yet, it’s a bit strange to hear the song without it, isn’t it? Live versions of the song don’t have that cowbell and honestly, in a live setting you don’t miss it too much, but you do make note of its absence. I imagine many fans add the sound in their own heads while listening to it, almost like how we all know we’re going to die someday and even if it isn’t in the forefront of our brains at all times, we can still hear the ticking if we really concentrate.

We’ve covered the first lines of the song and the overall vibe and delivery of the chorus, now might be a good time to cover the second verse.

The second verse is the part of the song most people think about and discuss when the cowbell jokes are all said and done. The verse in full is this:

Valentine is done Here but now they're gone Romeo and Juliet Are together in eternity (Romeo and Juliet) 40,000 men and women everyday (like Romeo and Juliet) 40,000 men and women everyday (redefine happiness) Another 40,000 coming everyday (we can be like they are)

Have you ever heard someone say, “Did you know ‘(Don’t Fear) the Reaper’ by Blue Öyster Cult is actually about joint suicide??? Crazy how people really don’t notice that!” First, I fully understand why people come to that conclusion. I used to think the exact same thing until I really started listening to the song again. I also understand that people say that because it gives the song some added mystique and it’s a much more “rock and roll” story if you say that the band managed to sneak a song about joint suicide onto the unsuspecting masses and nobody was the wiser until the song was already a hit. When Buck Dharma was asked what the most misinterpreted song the band made in that Songfacts interview, his answer was, “It could be "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." It's not about suicide, although people kind of get that from the Romeo and Juliet reference.”

I don’t blame people for thinking that, considering Romeo and Juliet are the most famous couple that committed joint suicide (even though they really only did it because of Shakespeare’s sick joke of having one of them think the other is really dead and deciding to follow them to the afterlife). It also doesn’t help that the next line right after the literary reference is “40,000 men and women everyday.” You’d be completely forgiven for thinking Buck was citing a statistic on suicide. However, even if he was citing a stat, he would’ve been wrong in 1976 anyway and the number would unfortunately be way too low and wrong now. In a 2019 interview with The Guardian, Buck explained why he chose that number: “The line “40,000 men and women every day” was my wild guess about how many people in the world die daily. I didn’t research it – and it turned out that I was about 100,000 out. But I just needed a number I could sing.”

I find that misunderstanding and Buck’s answer to be way more funny and lighthearted than thinking it’s a song about joint suicide. I also think that listening to the song through that interpretation ruins what the song has previously established and is going for, which is a loving and inviting version of meeting the reaper.

I admit that there is the line, “Came the last night of sadness / And it was clear she couldn't go on,” which I could see as a reference to someone wanting to take their own life. But, the preceding lines are “Love of two is one / Here but now they're gone,” which I think contextually paints more of a picture of a widow being unable to carry on without their romantic partner rather than just somebody who no longer wishes to live. Reading the lines as a widow who wishes to leave this world and be reunited with her partner in the next one fits more in line with the beginning lines of the song:

Then the door was open and the wind appeared The candles blew and then disappeared The curtains flew and then he appeared Saying don't be afraid Come on, baby (and she had no fear) And she ran to him (then they started to fly) They looked backward and said goodbye (she had become like they are) She had taken his hand (she had become like they are) Come on, baby (don't fear the reaper)

These lines beautifully paint that classic gothic imagery of Death visiting someone in the night and taking them away. There’s no darkness, no evil, no despair. No part of this is terrifying and Death leads her to the next stage with a loving and guiding hand. To die in comfort. To die without fear. Who could ask for a better way to go? I can’t say for sure whether Pratchett’s Death was inspired by this song or not, but there are clear parallels between the caring and nurturing depiction of Death in this song and the lovable and caring version of Death that exists in the Discworld novels. Both works seek to present Death as both an undertaker and a caretaker, a kind escort to the next plateau. We all must face death, whether we want to or not, so doesn’t it help to comfort the mind and the soul just a little to imagine that the anthropomorphic personification of death is someone who cares about us? Who wants to ensure that we reach the other side in one piece?

Sonically, I think the song achieves this with that middle part of the song that begins at the 2:30 mark. When the song stops, Buck plays a riff that leads into a completely different song. Then the band just goes off the rails real quick into this wild and terrifying ride. Buck solos, the band explodes and you’re just assaulted for about a minute before the song returns to its original groove. The main riff returns, the band locks into that groove again and the band continues the song as if that brief detour didn’t happen. If music tells a story beyond the lyrics, that detour is the band using sound to highlight the anxiety and horror about having to face death and the reaper leading you through it to the other side. You have to listen to that wild middle part to get to the rest of the song. If you interpret Buck’s guitar as “the reaper,” then it’s leading you through the darkness and the muck until you both reach the other side. It’s simply fantastic musical storytelling and the Cult were always clever with stuff like that, more clever than they were ever given credit for.

“(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” is one of Blue Öyster Cult’s best songs. It’s admittedly easy to just write it off as an overrated and overplayed it due to the popularity it’s enjoyed, but that popularity is warranted because they captured something about facing death and inevitable demise on that track that no other band in the seventies seemed to be able to match. It’s the defining song about death from the seventies and it deserves every accolade it’s ever received.

When Pratchett’s Death is giving his appeal to Azrael and asking for his job back towards the end of Reaper Man, his argument to the Death of Universes is this:

All things that are, are ours. But we must care. For if we do not care, we do not exist. If we do not exist, then there is nothing but blind oblivion. And even oblivion must end someday. Lord, will you grant me just a little time? For the proper balance of things. To return what was given. For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds.

Buck and Blue Öyster Cult also strongly believed that we should have a Death that cares about us. None of us know for certain where we’re going once we’re gone (though a lot of people have developed interesting theories and ideas regarding where we go) but we do know that it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms with and move past the loss of loved ones. We carry that weight with us and even if we have a belief about where they’ve gone to, we wish they were here with us instead. Saying goodbye to our loved ones when they die is one of the toughest emotional battles, but they are battles we have to fight. No matter where our loved ones go after they die, I’m sure we can all agree that we hope there was somebody there to extend a hand, be kind, and lead them to that next place. Why? Well, because...

What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man?

#original post #ranting and raving #blue oyster cult #music criticism #music essay

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