December 1st – How is it we can consider ourselves
so on it when the general discussion centres round rock music and yet be so off
it when certain specific lyrics are dissected?
In 1985 two families sued the band Judas Priest for causing
the deaths of one son and the wounding of a second, and Ozzy Osborne’s Suicide Solution has been cited as the
prime mover in the death by suicide of three fans. In no way wishing to be
disrespectful, I think the lawyer opening for the defence in the Judas Priest
trial got it right;
…these two youths have
led sad and miserable lives and any problems that led to their deaths began
long before any connection with heavy metal music.
That one can be so off it as to believe firstly the tracks on
Judas Priest’s album Stained Class,
which contained the supposed key phrases;
Let’s be dead
and
Do It
(and remember, these aren’t track titles but lines in the
lyrics of two of those tracks) were a strong enough signal for the listener to consider
topping themself and then, in the case of one of them, to go ahead and actually
kill himself beggars belief…and I’m sure the documented hours of beer drinking
and marijuana smoking that preceded their end-of-life attempts had nothing to
do with the eventual outcome. The same misreading has been attributed to a
track by Blue Oyster Cult (BOC) that I particularly like, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. With lines
like;
Romeo and Juliet
together in eternity
and
Come on baby, baby take
my hand, we’ll be able to fly
you’d think it’d crumble under the weight of law suits and
tombstones, and indeed there have been several publicised misreadings of the
song. Trouble is folk sort of get carried away with the depth of their own
imagination which can often prove to be about as deep as a really, really
shallow thing; let’s just lay out the twisted thinking that accompanies brains
looking for a cause to follow but without the intellect to spell the word, cause. The thinking goes…
Blue Oyster Cult, whose vocalist Eric Bloom was born
this day in 1944, have an umlaut over the capital O of their name. An umlaut has German connections. The Germans gave
rise to the Nazi ideology. Wagner was a German classical musician who was
Hitler’s favourite composer, indeed the Bayreuth
Now, if a fascination with fresh-cooked, piping hot ring
doughnuts could be pulled out of someone’s pop song, I might be tempted towards
death by warm dough, but, as things are…?
In the words of the writer of the song, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, Buck Dharma (Dharma? That can’t be his
real name…can it? If so, I don’t understand why all BOC followers aren’t cleansing themselves to death or standing
still to the point that they’re hit by a passing car…if so, Money-Grubbing Stupid Law Suits ‘R’ Us
would be fully employed). According to Mr. Dharma the words of the song refer
to the everlasting quality of love;
I was actually kind of
appalled when I first realised that some people were seeing it as an
advertisement for suicide or something; that was not my intention at all. It
is, like, not to be afraid of it, death (as opposed to actively bring it
about). It’s basically a love song where the love transcends the actual
physical existence of the partners.
Can’t really say it any plainer than that, can you, but I bet
there’ll be some twerp out there now listening to that track and getting it all
horribly wrong. To help with that possibility may I suggest that you go first
to YouTube and type in on the address bar: blue
oyster cult don’t fear the reaper lyrics and click play on any of the
selection (you’ll also see how much the occult/death/reaper theme is prevalent;
it isn’t; the song is about love and life, as you will see from the lyrics).
Now, after you’ve done that and to put the whole song into
perspective, click on the link below…sorry about the sound quality but it’s still
a killer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRyE5mqv5wk
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