Blog Three: Tone & Symbolism

I decided to write about a song instead of a poem. The name of the song is called Don't Fear The Reaper. The song is played by a rock band called Blue Oyster Cult and the song was released from their 1976 album, "Agents Of Fortune". I never heard this song until two summers ago. This song is included in a video game called Rockband. Rockband consists of controllers modeled after musical instruments. Options the game offers for players to play are lead guitarist, bass guitarist, and drums as well as singing through a USB microphone. Their scored by their ability to match scrolling musical notes while playing the instrument and by their ability to match the singer's pitch on vocals. How I came across this song was because of rockband. I got hooked on the game and played every song and somehow this song captured my attention the most. I believe it was because it was really fun to play on the drums, afterwards I started listening to the song for its lyrics and realized it expressed a lot of emotions. Although this song is quite old its still well known. It was written and sung by the band's lead guitarist, Donald Roeser.

The usage of tones expresses many forms of how a poem/song's lyrics are perceived by individuals. The tone in this song expresses many emotions. Emotions vary from depression, love, fear, and death. I interpret many expressions that contradicts each emotion. For example by having fear and fearless present. Fear is towards the beginning of the song and fearless is at the end of the verse. At the beginning of the song it is said the women fears the reaper. However at the end she no longer has fear. A mood the song gives off is suicidal because as the song continues we learn that the woman gave in and she stopped fearing the reaper.

Which brings as to symbolism, the word reaper symbolizes death for the reaper is short for grim reaper. Symbolism can be defined as uncovering what a person means by using certain words that determines what it actually stands for. Such words used in this song are "Valentine", "Romeo and Juliet" refers to a tragic love story, "baby take my hand.. we'll be able to fly (don't fear the reaper)" refers to not fearing death. Another example would be "40,000 men and women everyday (like Romeo & Juliet), another 40,000 coming everyday (we can be like they are)" I interpret this verse as a death count, as in men and women are dying like Romeo and Juliet did. Referring to the song as a suicide of a woman, making the choice to end her life to be with her beloved or just to die. What gives it the vibe that the women wants to be with her dead love is because of the words the song contains such as "baby.. we can be like Romeo & Juliet.. baby I'm your man.. baby take my hand". This song can be about a lost love or the reaper calling for her.

In conclusion, my interpretation of the song is about a women deciding to end her life. About a tragic love story, that she thought she could overcome. Having the reaper be a temptation for her to end her life to be with her beloved and losing fear. She overcame one think only and that was death. The last verse says " .. and she ran to him (then they started to fly), they looked backward and said goodbye.. she had taken his hand ( she had become like they are)", making their love for one another reunite in the after life.

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