(Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976)

"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is a song by the American rock band Blue Öyster Cult from the 1976 album Agents of Fortune. Written and sung by the lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, it deals with eternal love and the inevitability of death. Dharma wrote it while picturing an early death for himself.

Released as an edited single (omitting the slow building interlude in the original), the song is Blue Öyster Cult's highest chart success, reaching #7 in Cash Box and #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1976. Critical reception was positive and in December 2003 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was listed at number 405 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 songs of all time.

Background

The song is about the inevitability of death and the foolishness of fearing it. The singer and lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, wrote it while thinking about what would happen if he died at a young age. He used Romeo and Juliet as an example of a couple who wanted to be together in the afterlife.

Lyrics such as "Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity" led many listeners to interpret the song to be about a murder–suicide pact. Dharma said he was appalled that some listeners interpreted the song as encouraging suicide. He instead meant the lyrics as a plea not to fear death, as opposed to actively bringing it about, and said it was "a love song where the love transcends the actual physical existence of the partners".

Composition and recording

"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was written and sung by Dharma and produced by David Lucas, Murray Krugman, and Sandy Pearlman. The song's distinctive guitar riff is built on the I-bVII-bVI chord progression in A minor. The riff was recorded with Krugman's Gibson ES-175 guitar, which was run through a Music Man 410 combo amplifier, and Dharma's vocals were captured with a Telefunken U47 tube microphone. The guitar solo and guitar rhythm sections were recorded in one take, while a four-track tape machine amplified them on the recording. Recording engineer Shelly Yakus remembers piecing together the separate vocals, guitar and rhythm section into a master track, with the overdubbing occurring in that order.

Mojo described its creation: "'Guys, this is it!' engineer Shelly Yakus announced at the end of the first take. 'The legendary once-in-a-lifetime groove!' ... What evolved in the studio was the extended solo section; it took them nearly as long to edit the five-minute track down to manageable length as it did to record it."

The song features the cowbell percussion instrument overdubbed on the original recording. Bassist Joe Bouchard remembered the producer requesting that his brother, drummer Albert Bouchard, play the cowbell: "Albert thought he was crazy. But he put all this tape around a cowbell and played it. It really pulled the track together." However, both producer David Lucas and bandmember Eric Bloom claim credit for the performance.

Reception

The song was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 20 weeks, reaching number 12 for the weeks of November 6 and November 13, 1976. It was the band's highest-charting U.S. song and helped Agents of Fortune reach number 29 on the Billboard 200. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" charted even higher in Canada, peaking at number 7. The single edit was released in the UK in July 1976 (CBS 4483) but failed to chart. The unedited album version was released as a single (CBS 6333) in May 1978, where it reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song received critical acclaim. Record World said that "An 'Eight Miles High' guitar line is complemented by smooth vocals." Denise Sullivan of AllMusic praised the song's "gentle vocals and virtuoso guitar" and "haunting middle break which delivers the listener straight back to the heart of the song once the thunder is finished". Nathan Beckett called it the band's "masterpiece" and compared the vocals to the Beach Boys. Writing for PopMatters, James Mann called it a "landmark, genre-defining masterpiece" that was "as grand and emotional as American rock and roll ever got". Pitchfork also called the song a masterpiece. In 2020, Classic Rock wrote the song "remained one of the most instantly recognisable tracks in the whole genre, and it continues to turn up in surprising places even today".

Personnel

• Eric Bloom – guitar, backing vocals
• Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser – guitar, lead vocals
• Allen Lanier – keyboards, guitar
• Joe Bouchard – bass
• Albert Bouchard – drums, percussion, cowbell

with:

Michael and Randy Brecker – horns (their contribution appears only on the extended album track and was edited out of the released single)

David Lucas – backing vocals, keyboards, percussion

Covers

New Zealand band the Mutton Birds recorded a version for the soundtrack of Peter Jackson's film The Frighteners. In 1997, it peaked at No. 48 on the Australian ARIA singles charts, the only Mutton Birds single to chart in Australia.

English electronic music group Apollo 440 released a cover version in their 1995 album Millennium Fever.