Don't try to tell me \Don't Fear the Reaper"" isn't about vampires, because it totally is.
Nobody believes me, but I feel confident that if I write about this, the guys from Blue Oyster Cult will appear just like the vampires, except at my door because my window is on the second floor and they aren't vampires, but they will show up and say that I am the only one ever to understand that song and then we'll smoke a joint that's been dipped in the greatest hash oil ever and The Guess Who will appear and start singing an a cappella version of ""Laughing"" and it will rule.
In order for this to happen though, I need to explain it for all of you. So here are some reasons why the song is definitely about vampires.
First of all, the riff is incredibly sexy and menacing. It's like it's coming from another world, where death isn't the end: That's the reverb doing its thing. It has a sort of New Romantic Gothic kind of thing going for it that works really well with vampires.
Speaking of romantic, there's a love story in the song that I believe is about a vampire. When it's clear that she can't go on (i.e. she is close to death, I say cancer), the vampire appears in the room. He offers to save her. He's going to save her from death by making her beyond death: a vampire!
That's the way vampires do it. They have to be invited in before they can commit erotic abduction. So the vampire shows up, and then he invites her to come with him. Then, when she decides to go (and that's kind of a moot point, because it's hard to turn down a vampire), after she runs to him, they start to fly. Vampires are always flying around. It's one of the cooler parts about being a vampire.
I have to address a couple of arguments. Some might say that the song is about not fearing the reaper, and I guess the title suggests it, but of course it's got to go deeper than that.
It's about how she doesn't have to fear the reaper because she's going be a vampire, and they don't die because they're already dead. Yeah, so they have to go through the reaper anyway. But they don't have to fear him.
So why do they talk about Romeo and Juliet, and ""40,000 men and women everyday"" and how ""we have become like they are?"" Doesn't it mean that they commit suicide and jump to their deaths out the window to join all the dead folks? Nope. It's about vampires.
There aren't 40,000 men and women vampires everyday, because that would mean that there are a whole lot of vampires. That wouldn't make any sense. It just means that 40,000 people die everyday, and dead people are like vampires in the sense that they both died, but vampires are undead. The song doesn't say that they join the 40,000 dead people, just that, ""We have become like they are.""
Now try listening to ""Don't Fear the Reaper"" and not imagine a vampire at the window. I can't do it anymore. I told my friend this theory four years ago and he still thinks about it.
Next week: the allegorical importance of ""Fairies Wear Boots"" by Black Sabbath.
