5 Classic Rock Songs With Even More Cowbell Than (Don't Fear) The Reaper

Even before a 2000 "Saturday Night Live" sketch made Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" a punchline for its pervasive use of cowbell, it was already well known in the classic rock world for that particular melodic-percussion choice. But just because guest host Christopher Walken played a record producer who demanded "more cowbell!" from Gene Frenkle (fictional, portrayed by Will Ferrell) and launching a memorable catchphrase, doesn't mean that the 1976 hit single is the standard bearer of cowbell, or that the song has the most cowbell. It's just the one most associated with it.

It's an overlooked historical detail at this point: By the time Blue Oyster Cult released "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," a song from the '70s everyone forgot until a TV show made it a hit, the cowbell was thoroughly entrenched as a hard rock instrument. Bands used it anywhere from sparingly to often throughout the late 1960s and the 1970s. Many familiar classic rock hits contain way more cowbell, if one pays attention and listens closely. Here are some ultra-famous and successful classic rock songs that actually use far more cowbell than Blue Oyster Cult needed for "(Don't Fear) The Reaper."

One of the biggest hits that took over the summer of 1969, "Honky Tonk Women" is among the Rolling Stones' most significant hits, occupying the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 for a month. It's got a title that references country music bars, in part because it's a variation of another Rolling Stones song, an attempted tribute to Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers called "Country Honk." One other country-adjacent element that really came through on "Honky Tonk Women" was the cowbell, which keeps the beat and adds novelty throughout most of the running time.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Rolling Stones worked extensively with producer Jimmy Miller. Helming five albums for the band, he was also an accomplished studio percussionist. "If you'd be doing something and it wasn't quite happening, he'd go out and pick up a cowbell and go out into the studio and the whole thing would turn around," Spooky Tooth member Gary Wright told Rolling Stone. 

This time, Miller's exuberant, motivational cowbell made it into the final mix — and high and clearly, too. It's much more prominent than the cowbell in "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." Miller's resonant work on the cowbell turned around the "Honky Tonk Women" session, although it was actually two cowbells, stacked and held together with a piece of steel.

"Working for the Weekend" was only a No. 29 hit for the enthusiastic, keyboards-and-guitar-driven band Loverboy in 1981, but it's endured for more than 40 years. It's seemingly played by just about every classic rock station in North America every Friday afternoon. "Working for the Weekend" is also historically significant for featuring one of the scant few cowbell solos in rock history, and a true one at that, with no other instruments on the track at the time. 

At the very beginning of the song, Loverboy member and drummer Matt Frenette kicks things off with three clear, succinct, and powerful whacks on his kit's cowbell attachment. The rest of Loverboy joins him all at once to fully open "Working for the Weekend" on the fourth hammering of the cowbell. The device is never touched in the song again, but not even "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult can claim to have squarely focused that much attention on the cowbell.

A classic rock song from 1970 worthy of blasting on repeat forever, "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain is one of the hardest and most blues-inflected tracks in the classic rock canon. Full of blazing guitar riffs and the raspy, guttural vocals of frontman Leslie West, "Mississippi Queen" bombards listeners with such a thick and sturdy wall of heavy, electrified noise that it seems unlikely that a sound as humble and thin as that given off by a cowbell could even make an impact. But it's the cowbell that starts off "Mississippi Queen" and helps set a mood in addition to keeping all of Mountain in rhythm.

Drummer Corky Laing plays the cowbell on the song, which is the first and initially only sound on "Mississippi Queen." He's joined on his seventh strike by a guitar riff, and then after a few more bars of percussive persistence, the rest of the band begins their jammy blues rock. The cowbell remains a faint part of the mix for the rest of the song, occasionally piping up from out of the din. 

The cowbell may be used less here than in Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," but it's more effective in "Mississippi Queen" because it's so emphatic. In addition to a splashy intro, and as one of many of Laing's surfaces, the cowbell brings the song full circle, the last instrument standing, making a powerful outro for "Mississippi Queen."

In the 1970s, there were few bands as innovative or exciting as War, a sprawling outfit that fused rock, soul, funk, and elements of Latin rock. Pulling from the vast and multi-faceted culture of its home base of Los Angeles, War celebrated the area's low-rider car scene in its 1975 single "Low Rider." A No. 7 hit at the time, it's far and away War's most popular song in the streaming era, and "Low Rider" is a classic rock standard that's bursting with instrumentation, particularly melodic percussion. Timbales and xylophone can be heard throughout the very funky "Low Rider," as can a whole lot of cowbell.

That distinctive, plinking sound opens the song, appearing by itself in a rapid-fire but tricky rhythm, throwing open the proverbial doors to the rest of the experimental funk that will characterize "Low Rider." And then, that cowbell sticks around for the entirety of the track, complementing the drums and other percussive instruments. While often it's employed to merely keep the beat in classic rock tunes, including most famously on Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," here the cowbell is crucial to the particular and vibrant sound of "Low Rider."

If there's any song that can stand head-to-head with Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" as the quintessential 1970s cowbell-heavy classic rock song, it's 1975's "Hair of the Dog" by Scottish hard rock band Nazareth. Collectively, it hasn't been as remembered as fondly or robustly as "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" has, perhaps because it didn't reach the Top 40; Nazareth is a one-hit wonder in the U.S. with the 1976 power ballad "Love Hurts." 

Limited by its use of profanity — considered shocking for the mid-1970s — the chorus for "Hair of the Dog" consists of the repeated line, "Now you're messin' with a / A son of a b***h." The song was ultimately overshadowed by the more palatable "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," although it could've easily been the subject of a silly "Saturday Night Live" sketch. That's how heavy the cowbell is in "Hair of the Dog."

All the percussion on the song is provided by Nazareth drummer Darrell Sweet, and that includes the cowbell. He manages to play the cowbell throughout the song, incorporating it into his regular, hard-charging beat along with the more common elements of the drum kit. It's actually the main percussion instrument that drives Sweet's contribution, and thus what provides the majority of the rhythm for the entire song. If Christopher Walken's "SNL" character Bruce Dickinson wanted more cowbell, he would've found it in "Hair of the Dog."