Blue Öyster Cult Released This Hit In 1975 — 25 Years Later, One TV Moment Brought It Back To Life

"More cowbell!" — the now-much-memed joke goes. If you're in the know, you know that this line ought to be said in Christopher Walken's bizarre accent. In 2000, he starred as an insistent, cowbell-obsessed music producer in a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit along with Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, and Chris Kattan. That's a full 25 years after the skit's topic, Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," hit the airwaves — a song that SNL's skit brought back to life. 

Whether it's Will Ferrell's spare tire protruding through his ever-growing midriff, the completely inaccurate instrument playing of everyone in the skit, or the whole cowbell shtick, we don't know. But SNL's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" skit was massive when it aired in a pre-YouTube era. It was such a hit that everyone knew about it and talked about it long before they could share whatever videos they wanted in a giant, shared online repository. Not only that, but the skit lives on all the way to the present and continues to tickle folks' collective funny bones.

SNL's Blue Öyster Cult skit wasn't just a funny bit, though — it practically resurrected the band. The skit also introduced "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" to another generation, a song that was already a hit that reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It might seem ironic that a song about embracing death's inexorable grasp got a second life via a comedy show. Then again, cowbells are always funny, especially more of them.

On Guitar Player, Blue Öyster Cult singer Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser describes the band's writing as a hodgepodge of styles and songwriting methods, but says that the core of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" came rather quickly to him, lyrics and music both. The infamous cowbell, though? The band never originally intended to include it in the track, and didn't even include it when they played the song live — until the infamous 2000 SNL skit, however. In fact, some listeners didn't even notice the metronome-like clunk of the cowbell until the skit, no matter that the song was a hit on release and defined rock history in 1976. Then, the cowbell was impossible to not hear. 

Post-SNL skit, Roeser told Q104.3 (via Facebook) that folks started showing up at concerts with cowbells, providing precisely what Christopher Walken's SNL character demanded. Roeser also said that the band "made our peace" with the cowbell, though per Louder Sound, neither the instrument nor the skit really bothered them to begin with. Band member Eric Bloom said, "We all thought [the skit] was hilarious. And to this day, I love watching it." At the same time, the band was dismayed that the skit portrayed them as self-serious and pretentious, because they never thought of themselves that way. But thanks to SNL, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to hear "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" with a completely straight face again, anyway.