40,000 Men and Women Every Day.....

Blue Öyster Cult remains permanently salient to me for three reasons:

• "Extraterrestrial Live" was the first album I bought with my own money
• The stoner dreamgirl that sat in front of me in 8th grade English wore earrings shaped like the BÖC symbol every day
• When I had a corporate cubicle job, every time I looked over the top of my half wall, I saw the cover for their first album

I've been talking about BÖC for about a week now in person and on message boards, because my friend Fred picked up a greatest hits at a truckstop. Critic Richard Meltzer wrote "Burnin' For You" arguably their biggest hit, and Fred challenged me to write the "Burnin' For You" for one of the bands here in Baton Rouge. It's almost there, the verse came to me at the gas pump this morning.

"Don't Fear The Reaper" is one of those perfect storm songs: the right mix of momentum, corniness, and bombast - esp this part

40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness*
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper

how it almost goes into the chorus but doesn't, trailing off into a guitar solo instead as dead souls queue up for the afterlife - I get that same 5th grade feeling of "dude...they are talking about death" every time I hear it.

"Veteran of the Psychic Wars" was the ultimate jam of my clumsy D&D years, but I suspect it holds up much better in memory. Now, whenever I see some spiral-for-eyes burnout lurking around at a bar, that's the phrase that comes to mind.

The real question is which is worse: "Godzilla" or "Joan Crawford" - Imagine the guy at every BÖC show bellowing out "JOAN CRAWFOOOOORRRRDDDD" at each break.

* I copied this from some lyrics website, and don't remember that second response being "Redefine Happiness" but I can't recall what I thought it was