Does anyone know what "Don't Fear the Reaper" is ABOUT?

[Lizard]

I'm referring to the 70's hit by Blue Oyster Cult. I LOVE this song. I think it has some of the best bass and drums of any song I've ever heard. I particularly like that beat in the background (it sounds like pock pock pock pock) I don't know what the instrument that makes that sound is called, but I know it looks like copper pipe.

But my big issue is the lyrics. The phrase "don't fear the Reaper" is pretty easy to fathom, but what about the rest of it? "40,000 men and women every day"?? What's that about? Is the whole song about committing suicide, and 40,000 people do that everyday?
I've heard this song is quoted by Stephen King somewhere. Where? What part? In what context? I've helpfully reproduced the lyrics below. (Probably violating a law or two in the process.)

Don’t Fear The Reaper – by Blue Oyster Cult [redacted by manhattan]

40,000 men and women everyday...Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming every day...We can be like they are

Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared...saying don't be afraid


[Edited by manhattan on 08-18-2000 at 01:36 PM]

[missbunny]

Do a Web search. There's some site out there on which BOC explains the song. From what I recall, the "40,000" is just a number they picked out of a hat.

[Gravity]

Ah, one of the classics. I like Shooting shark better for both imagery and impenetrability, though.

As for what it all means...I think that that is VERY open to interpretation.

It was used by Stephen king in both the book and the movie 'The Stand.' It plays at the very beginning of the movie as the soundtrack to which the fatal disease is released into the world.

K. (a BIG BOC fan)

[HelloKitty]

I always thought the song was about a guy singing to a girl about committing suicide with him. "C'mon baby, don't fear the reaper, baby take my hand, we'll be able to fly, etc." You know, like Romeo and Juliet...they both committed suicide, ya know.

The 40,000 men and women--it's probably more than that these days that kill themselves. I don't like the song because of what it is singing about...too creepy for me.

Same thing with that Ozzy song where he sings about suicide with Lita Ford...can't remember the name of that one.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by Lizard
(Probably violating a law or two in the process.)



Uh, yeah. I've been way too lax about this lately. As this site is owned by people who make their money by creating intellectual property, surely you can understand that they would not want to be a party to stealing that property from others.

I've redacted the lyrics as best I can to conform with the fair use doctrine.

Folks, please do not interpret my previous failings in this regard as blanket permission to go reproducing copyrighted material on this website.

[TampaFlyer]

I'm glad someone asked this, because I've always wondered what the 40,000 referred to- people dying, falling in love, or what.

[Gravity]

Originally sung by HelloKitty
...that Ozzy song where he sings about suicide with Lita Ford...can't remember the name of that one.

Close My Eyes Forever

K.

[Lizard]

manhattan,

Sure, pick on me! :p Well, surely you wouldn't mind if I provided a url="http://showcase.netins.net/web/iowamusic/lyrics/Don't%20Fear%20The%20Reaper.html"]link[/url] to place where the fulllyrics are posted elswhere, would you?

[Lizard]

Damn vB code! That link from my last post is here (http://showcase.netins.net/web/iowamusic/lyrics/Don't%20Fear%20The%20Reaper.html).

[Little Nemo]

I thought the lyrics are pretty clear. The song is about suicide pacts among teenage lovers. I've always been amazed at the lack of controversy over this song; I can't think of any other pro-suicide songs that get this kind of airplay.

[techchick68]

Stephen King, famous for using songs in his work, used Don't Fear the Reaper at the beginning of The Stand.

He also used it at the beginning of the movie, so every time I hear it I think of the movie.

[ubermensch]

as anyone who watched christopher walken's last appearance on SNL could tell you, that DOCK DOCK DOCK sound is a cow bell. "you know what it needs? more cowbell...."

[Gravity]

I've sort of always interpreted it as a dead lover tempting his (ex?) girlfriend to suicide.

If you read it with that in mind it make sense (IMO.)

K.

[Lizard]

Originally posted by techchick68
Stephen King, famous for using songs in his work, used Don't Fear the Reaper at the beginning of The Stand.

He also used it at the beginning of the movie, so every time I hear it I think of the movie.

Hmm. Which part did he use in the book?

I am quickly getting obsessed with this song. I've listened to it about 6 times today. I should be over it soon, but I've figured out a few things. The last verse, where it says:"Came the last night of sadness/And it was clear she couldn't go on/Then the door was open and the wind appeared...The curtains flew then he appeared...saying don't be afraid"
I think this is definitely about the Reaper coming for a young girl. But this still leaves the seond verse somewhat open to interpretation. Does anyone know when this song came out originally?

Hope manhattan doesn't jump on me for quoting that...

[Markxxx]

In my younger days when I would write songs, I found very few people got the same message I was trying to convey.

Remember also in the 70s, especially the early 70s, some of the great rock acts, Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the dude from the Doors(his name escapes me for the moment), even to a lesser degree Mama Cass, all lived life on the edge. That is what a lot of the harder edge rock of the 70s was about. Don't fear the reaper was more of an "ERA" thing.

[Mr. Blue Sky]

I got the fever, baby! And the only cure is MORE cowbell!

[techchick68]

Lizard,

If I remember correctly, the reference to the song is on the first page of the book.

In the movie, they started to play it after the MP and his family left the compound.

Later on in the movie, one of the other characters was a singer and his first hit was Baby I'm Your Man/i] which incidentally is a line from [i]Don't Fear the Reaper.

I assume there is a connection there but I may be wrong.

[NicePete]

"Dude, that's a pussy song!"

"No Way!"

"Yeah. Every band does at least one song to weed out the pussies. That's BOC's."

...Or something sorta like that.

I gotta quit drinking the Schnappster. (DING)

[Road Rash]

I remember a radio interview on Redbeard (a weekly syndicated musical tribute with interviews) where they interviewed the one who wrote the song (Buck Dharma?). He was adamant about it not being a siucide song, claiming he was moved by the death of a friend.

[Zarathustra]

I've sort of always interpreted it as a dead lover tempting his (ex?) girlfriend to suicide.

I always thought that the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" had a similar theme, though the temptation to suicide is in the singer's own mind:

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love, both never to come back . . .

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not forsee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes . . .


Depressing and disturbing song, especially if you're currently in love with someone . . .

[Boris B]

This song came out in 1976 on the LP Agents of Fortune. One of the most inconsistent of Blue Oyster Cult's efforts, this album has some excellent songs and an unusually weak coda, even for B.O.C., which always seems to pack in mediocre songs toward the end of their albums.

I could never tell exactly what the song was about. The lovers' suicide thing is plausible, but I think suicide might be too direct and too active. I think this might be a more passive, placid, symbolic sort of death. Obviously, if you choose to die voluntarily in reality, that is suicide, but in the Gothic fantasy context of the song, I think it's more about accepting inevitable change gracefully. Say, if two lovers were going to be killed for continuing their illicit affair, but couldn't bear to stay apart, they'd sort of be accepting the reaper by continuing their affair. Or, if one of them had a terminal disease and the other decided to join her or him, they would be going to the reaper hand in hand.

Yeah, it's sort of a creepy song. In a way, it super-creepily anticipates a number of HIV infections which are speculated to have been voluntary. Suicide by biotoxin. Some person has an HIV+ partner and can't bear to be on the other side of the HIV divide from him. Even more plausible considering the depression which presumably follows from having all your friends die in their twenties and thirties. I don't know how often it really happens, but I think it's really scary and sad and fascinating if it does at all.

[irish_bill]

The BOC have always been one of my favourites, but to state that this song is about suicide is way wide of the mark.

The notion of death is often used in poetry to represent change. I have no doubt that Donald Roeser, or Buck Dharma as he is better known, would be familar with this idea.

As for the 40,000, have you ever seen footage of the mass weddings that take place? (In Asia?)

As for 'controversy' remember that in the 70's there was far more latitude given to music and it's content. The PRMC(?) and Tipper Gore became a plague in the 80's.

I read somewhere that Buck is a big fan of the Kingster.

[lawoot]

I remember back in the 70's hearing that the '40,000 men and women everyday' was a reference to people who actually WRITE to Romeo and Juliet (c/o Shakespeare in England). Kind of silly, when I look back on it now.

[Johnny L.A.]

The PRMC(?) and Tipper Gore became a plague in the 80's.
PMRC. Parent's Music Recources Committee.

Don't worry about Tipper Gore. Once she becomes First Lady she'll forget all about meddling with our First Ammendment rights.

Back on-topic, I think the suicide thoery makes sense; but when I first heard it I thought of vampires. The imagery of Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared...saying don't be afraid reminds me of the classic vampire films where Dracula appears in Mina's bedroom.

[pldennison]

techchick said:If I remember correctly, the reference to the song is on the first page of the book.

King nearly always starts his books, and often his chapters, with rock-and-roll quotes. He's a big rock fan, so he uses it literally. The "Reaper" quote does indeed appear on the page prior to the prologue, along with quotes from Springsteen's "Jungle Land" and Country Joe & The Fish's "Fish Cheer."

Later on in the movie, one of the other characters was a singer and his first hit was Baby I'm Your Man/i] which incidentally is a line from Don't Fear the Reaper.

Actually, Larry Underwood's hit single (the title track from his debut album) was "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man."

[AskNott]

You folks are reading wwwwaaaayyyy too much into that song. It's about farm machinery. It was rejected by the John Deere company, so the band took out the trademark and released the song anyway.

[KneadToKnow]

AskNott, you are my new hero.

[Lizard]

Originally posted by KneadToKnow
AskNott, you are my new hero.

Ditto. :p

[Jophiel]

If I recall (an old flame of my ran off with the book), the lines in The Stand were:

Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear that she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared

Which I guess in the context of the book could refer to the Reaper, the Walkin' Dude, or both -- depending on how you want to view the whole mess.

For the record, BOC appeared at my old hometown summertime jubilee thingie a few years back in a free concert. How the mighty have fallen ;) On the other hand, after seeing Godzilla 2000 the other day, I restarted listening to Godzilla.

[sunbear]

I'm glad I don't make out half the lyrics of most songs. I think that Jamie's Got A Gun has some sick stuff, but that's as far as I got. Why don't you tackle that. I won't read the interpretation cause I'm out of town and will forget this thread by tomorrow.