Don't Fear the Reaper

[shereads]

is one of the few songs that I consider a Good Earworm. It sticks in my head for at least a day after I hear it, but I don't mind at all. On the downside, it's accompanied by a disturbing urge to hoard barbituates and roleplay "Valley of the Dolls."

But that's not the fault of Blue Oyster Cult; it's my fault, for being so easily influenced by music that Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb makes me nostalgic for my days as a Height-Ashbury flower child who partied with Patty Hearst and was known in heroin circles as "Pinkie Sunshine." It could be worse; I could once have been a huge fan of Tupac Shakur.

Ya gotta know how to shake the snakes...



The cruelest abuse of favorite songs for commercial and entertainment purposes is when a Good Earworm is sliced into individual worm segments, one of which is then used to tease the audience. Example: the old Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken as Blue Oyster Cult's producer, who keeps interrupting the Reaper recording session to complain that there's not enough cowbell. It's funny, but it's a cheap laugh. Who can watch Christopher Walken use the word, "cowbell" in a sentence without laughing? Not I.

But dammit, after years of conditioning, I can't respond to those cowbells without anticipating my reward. When the skit repeatedly fails to deliver more than the opening notes of Don't Fear the Reaper, I feel like Pavlov's dog drooling for some Alpo that will never come.

Today, only a week after seeing a rerun of that episode, I heard Reaper all the way through, and had two unwelcome thoughts, one of which I blame on Walken and Saturday Night Live:

1. "Those are cowbells."

2. "Why the lowball estimate on the number of dead people per day?"

40,000 men and women every day (like Romeo and Juliet)
40,000 men and women every day (redefine happiness)
Another 40,000 coming every day (we can be like they are)

Was the world once so innocent that 40,000 deaths every 24 hours seemed like a lot?



<---------- blue oysters



That's all I wanted to say. Please put the rest of the thread to good use; it's a shame to waste a whole one. Goodnight, pornographers. Thanks for the free dirty stories.

~ SR

 

[impressive]

I don't think I've ever heard that song when sober.

 

[Guest]

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/sweetsubsarahh/reaper.jpg

 

[rgraham666]

I don't think I've ever heard the song at all.

 

[Liar]

I don't think I've ever heard the song at all.

Me niether. Wut song?

 

[AppleBiter]

I have it on CD. Used to hate it, but it grew on me.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

. . "Don't fear the reaper, Victor," Deepak says, walking away.
. . I'm nodding mindlessly, a vacant grin pasted on my face, until I turn around and mutter to myself, "I am the fucking reaper, Deepak," and a pretty girl smiles at me from underneath an awning and it's Wednesday and late afternoon and getting dark.

- in Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis​

 

[shereads]

I don't think I've ever heard the song at all.

You kids today! No respect for the classics.

 

[shereads]

The cult of More Cowbell

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46074-2005Jan28.html

<excerpt>

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 29, 2005; Page C01


There was something missing the other night when Blue Oyster Cult, the '70s stadium rockers, kicked into their signature song, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," in a gig at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis.

Fans of the band, and of "Saturday Night Live," knew exactly what the song needed: More cowbell.

Ever since April 2000, when "SNL" first broadcast a skit parodying "Reaper's" recording session, the 29-year-old rock anthem has been inseparable from the humble cowbell. And perhaps from Christopher Walken's portrayal of "legendary" record producer Bruce Dickinson, who repeatedly pleads in the skit for "more cowbell."

In fact, a kind of cult has sprung up around the Blue Oyster Cult bit and its two magic words. "More cowbell" appears on T-shirts, coffee mugs and buttons...

 

[rgraham666]

You kids today! No respect for the classics.

I'm older that you are young lady. Don't give me attitude, or I'll take you across my knee.

No wonder I don't know the song. Those were my punk days.

 

[shereads]

Don't give me attitude, or I'll take you across my knee.

Is that a threat? I mean, would it be considered a threat by most people?

 

[shereads]

The Cult of More Cowbell, cont'd

The Cowbell Project is creating an archive of recordings that should have had cowbell/more cowbell. Your are asked to submit suggested titles.

http://www.geekspeakweekly.com/cowbell/


More Cowbell wearing apparel, lapel pin and bumper sticker

http://www.cafepress.com/teesed/704779


More Cowbell lowrise thong. 100 percent ringspun cotton!

http://www.cafepress.com/teesed.27678226


Gotta Have More Cowbell! Another line of wearing apparel. The design lacks subtlety, but there's a good selection of colors.

http://www.fubbershmor.com/Cowbell.html


I Need More Cowbell featuring Christopher Walken Walken's picture on a variety of cowbell-themed attire. "I got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell."

http://www.need-more-cowbell.com/

 

[Quiet_Cool]

That was a pretty good sketch, eventhough at the time I thought it was stupid. Took a while to grow on me, but then the song did too.

To anyone who thinks they haven't heard it, I'm pretty sure you've only heard it a few million times. To be certain, go out and rent the movie "The Stand," and pay special attention to the scene at the beginning where the soldier has just escaped the base at the beginning, and is traveling toward Texas. It's where the credits play I believe, but am not certain. Other than that, if you'd prefer comedy, try "The Stoned Age," in which it pretty much plays on and off the whole movie, with the two main characters arguing over whether or not the song is "pussy."

Or, you could just download it long enough to get a sample (legally, of course )

Q_C

 

[TheEarl]

Chapter 1:

Death sighed. Being Death has the unfortunate prerequisite of being dead yourself and so he didn’t usually breathe, but he’d found that exasperated expellations of air were something he needed a lot in his job. Besides, when stress-balls melted under your touch and psychiatrists ran screaming if you talked to them for too long, you needed something to help you relieve stress.

He sighed again. It was quite depressing that he’d come to regard sighing as a viable alternative to therapy.

The tart from supplies watched him nervously. She was pressing herself against the doorframe, trying to keep as far away from him as possible. Death hated it when people did that; did they think he was contagious?

Actually, they probably had a point. He’d always been assured by senior management that his touch was one hundred percent non-fatal, but touchees tended to have the life expectancy of a chronically depressed lemming on top of a cliff. The chance of survival appeared to be there; it was just that everyone he had touched had managed to avoid it.

Death stared at the tart from supplies, causing her to shrink further back. Apparently she’d slept with half the office. Death eyed the low-cut top appreciatively. It had been centuries since a girl had let him even see her naked. Unfortunately the story of what had happened to Anne Boleyn had got around the office and now no-one would go near him. Many philosophers had written about ‘Death’s great seduction.’ None had understood just how hard he had to try.

The tart from supplies plucked up her courage and proffered her clipboard. “You need to sign.”

“What for?”

She didn’t elaborate, just dumbly offered the clipboard at arm’s length. Death rolled his eyes and stepped forwards to grab it, accidentally brushing his fingertips against hers as he did so. She looked at him in horror for a second and then ran shrieking from the room.

Or rather she would have done if the door hadn’t been closed. The tart from supplies bounced off with an unhealthy crunch and she collapsed on the floor. Death didn’t need to go and check her pulse. Strike another one off the list.

Death shook his head as he examined the supplies form. Anything from supplies worried him. Management were always trying to modernise his department without having a clue what they were doing. Sometimes they did well, such as when they gave him a jet-black Cadillac and an endless supply of beer. There was some vague marketing idea of Death being a bad-boy, which fizzled out quickly, taking the Cadillac with it. He’d managed to hold onto the beer.

Most times, however, Management were a menace. Their latest atrocity had been an aborted attempt to replace him with the Easter Bunny after watching Donnie Darko for the 50th time. That idea had fizzled out, but had left Death with a healthy sense of paranoia at the possibility of being replaced.

The very thought of that made him shudder and he signed the form, deciding they’d probably discipline him for dereliction of bureaucracy if he didn’t.

No sooner had his pen left the paper, then his scythe disappeared. As he was leaning on it at the time, Death felt rather aggrieved.

As he picked himself up off the floor, Death swore his usual oath of hellfire on the soles and little biting caterpillars on the toes of whoever had screwed him over. He knew it was useless; threatening Management was an exercise in futility. The last time he’d tried to kill one of them, it had taken sixty years for the paperwork to clear and for the man to actually drop dead.

There was nothing else for it. He was going to have to try and do his job without his scythe. Death shook his head as he walked out of the door, wondering what stupid tool Management had come up with to replace his precious scythe. Then he saw something that made him stop stock still.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Parked outside his door was a bright yellow miniature combine harvester



The Earl

 

[Guest]

 

[cloudy]

BOC is probably one of the most underappreciated bands of the 70's.

Who could forget Godzilla?

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high tension wires down

Helpless people on a subway train
Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

He picks up a bus and he throws it back down
As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town

Oh no, they say he's got to go go go Godzilla
Oh no, there goes Tokyo go go Godzilla

or Veteran of the Pyschic Wars?

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar
And I'm young enough to look at, and far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure that there's anything left of me

I've seen them twice in concert (many moons ago), and both times they outshined the band they'd been paired with....no comparison.

 

[JamesSD]

Season 2 of Six Feet Under used Don't Fear the Reaper in one of its episodes. Big dramatic moment where Nate is dealing with his fear of death. And of course I'm thinking:

"Needs more Cowbell".

Can't blame Six Feet Under, since the episode was made well before the SNL skit. It also gave me impetus to show my gf the Cowbell sketch, which she hadn't seen.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Mm, i'll always have a different memory of that song simply because it was the song that began a new chapter of my life.

It was my introduction to Blue Oyster Cult, which helped introduce me to hard rock and metal. Because it was my first taste, I entered the world of hard rock and metal believing it to be intelligent, baroque, and full of a dark sense of humour. This (perhaps misapprehension) helped me bypass the biases given to the field, introduced me to bands that changed my life, opened me to the music that calms me the most when I get royally pissed, and made me love the 11 knob.

Whenever possible I blast their classics as a testament to both that history and the sheer brilliance of their songs ("Astronomy", "Godzilla", "Flaming Telepath", "Joan Crawford", "I Love the Night", etc..).

That said, I loved the skit. Walken is a f***ing brilliant actor.

 

[velvetpie]

Good earworm? EWWWW!

 

[shereads]

It was my introduction to Blue Oyster Cult, which helped introduce me to hard rock and metal. Because it was my first taste, I entered the world of hard rock and metal believing it to be intelligent, baroque, and full of a dark sense of humour. This (perhaps misapprehension) helped me bypass the biases given to the field, introduced me to bands that changed my life, opened me to the music that calms me the most when I get royally pissed, and made me love the 11 knob.

Why not make 10 louder?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Why not make 10 louder?

I did. It still wasn't enough to survive Aryan Wet Dream High School.

 

[yui]

Why not make 10 louder?

I loved that movie!

 

[CharleyH]

. . "Don't fear the reaper, Victor," Deepak says, walking away.
. . I'm nodding mindlessly, a vacant grin pasted on my face, until I turn around and mutter to myself, "I am the fucking reaper, Deepak," and a pretty girl smiles at me from underneath an awning and it's Wednesday and late afternoon and getting dark.

- in Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis​

perfecto.

 

[Nessitude]

"As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll."