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The Reaper's Beyond Death: An Analysis In Music

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The Reaper's Beyond Death: An Analysis In Music
Beyond Death: An Analysis in Music In May of 1976, the classic rock band Blue Öyster Cult released a hit song, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, which took the music world by storm. The song itself details the story of a frightened woman at the moment of her death being consoled by the Grimm Reaper himself. Through striking imagery, the songwriters managed to relate a deep tale about mortality and what may be beyond in the afterlife. The song also includes allusion, which plays on the continuation if love even after death, by utilizing a reference to two very popular literary lovers. By utilizing stark imagery and emotion, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper offers a notion that death is not something to be feared and that both life and love can continue even beyond death itself.
Imagery plays an important role in bringing the 1976 song to life. The lyrics in (Don’t Fear) The Reaper are almost completely literal, yet they are illustrated very well in several verses throughout the song. In one particular stanza, the lyrics paint a very interesting picture:
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew and then he appeared
(Saying, "Don't be afraid")
The words themselves seem to conjure a very real image that many people imagine about the ars moriendi, the moment of death (De Pascale 82). The …show more content…
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper utilizes wonderful imagery and intelligent allusion to relate to its audience a sense of calm; the song literally states that one should not fear death. The stanza referring to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is an interesting addition to the song and it is interesting to note its placement in the middle of the song itself. This suggests the central theme of the song: the existence of life and love beyond death. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper reintroduces the ages-old themes of life, love and death to a more modern
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