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Mojo described its creation: "'Guys, this is it!’ engineer Shelly Yakus announced at the end of the first take. Sound engineer Shelly Yakus remembers piecing together the separate vocals, guitar and rhythm section into a master track, with the overdubbing occurring in that order. The guitar solo and guitar rhythm sections were recorded in one take, while a four-track tape machine amplified them on the recording. The riff was recorded with Krugman's Gibson ES-175 guitar, which was run through a Music Man 410 combo amplifier, and Dharma's vocals were captured with a Telefunken U47 tube microphone. The song's distinctive guitar riff is built on the "i-VII-VI" chord progression, in an A minor scale.
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"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was written and sung by lead guitarist Buck Dharma and produced by David Lucas, Murray Krugman, and Sandy Pearlman. He guessed that "40,000 men and women" died each day, and the figure was used several times in the lyrics this rate was 100,000 off the mark. He used Romeo and Juliet to describe a couple who wanted to be together in the afterlife. Lyrics such as " Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity" have led many listeners to interpret the song to be about a murder-suicide pact, but Dharma says the song is about eternal love, rather than suicide. The song is about the inevitability of death and the foolishness of fearing it, and was written when Dharma was thinking about what would happen if he died at a young age. It's basically a love song where the love transcends the actual physical existence of the partners." It is, like, not to be afraid of (as opposed to actively bring it about). "I felt that I had just achieved some kind of resonance with the psychology of people when I came up with that, I was actually kind of appalled when I first realized that some people were seeing it as an advertisement for suicide or something that was not my intention at all. Critical reception was positive and in December 2003 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was listed at number 405 on Rolling Stone 's list of the top 500 songs of all time. Released as an edited single (omitting the slow building interlude in the original), the song is Blue Öyster Cult's highest chart success, reaching #7 in Cash Box and #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1976. Dharma wrote the song while picturing an early death for himself. The song, written and sung by lead guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, deals with eternal love and the inevitability of death. " (Don't Fear) The Reaper" is a song by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult from the band's 1976 album Agents of Fortune. 1976 single by Blue Öyster Cult "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"