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.
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.
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.
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.”
Actually, Larry Underwood’s hit single (the title track from his debut album) was “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man.”
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.
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.
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.
On the other hand, after seeing Godzilla 2000 the other day, I restarted listening to Godzilla.