Desperately Seeking Cowbell

February 26, 2008 6:58 PM

I just bought my drummer a cowbell, but she's unsure of when to use it. I want to make her a list of songs with interesting uses of cowbell (or something similar, like a woodblock), but so far I've come up with: "Don't Fear the Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult (obviously) "Red Morning Light" - Kings of Leon I'm surprised that I couldn't find more, and I'm sure that I'm missing some pretty obvious ones. Any help?

Our band's style, if you think it's relevant, is somewhere between The Stooges, The Bee Gees and The Flaming Lips. I'm welcoming suggestions from any genre, though, since we tend to experiment with whatever sounds good.

posted by worstnerdever to media & arts (31 comments total)

As you may already know, Wikipedia has a few.
posted by box at 7:00 PM on February 26

"Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth, is the 'other classic cowbell song', IMHO.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 7:00 PM on February 26

Telephone Thing by the Fall.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:04 PM on February 26

Low Rider, by War for an older-skool feel.
posted by lonefrontranger at 7:07 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Midnight Oil. Power and the Passion
posted by mattoxic at 7:11 PM on February 26

Radiohead, Electioneering, is the one that comes to my mind. I don't know if you'd consider it particularly interesting use though.
posted by Bugg at 7:12 PM on February 26

"Mississippi Queen" by Mountain has a prominent cowbell right at the beginning.

Why on Earth do I know that?
posted by slogger at 7:15 PM on February 26

Well a classic cowbell song is Honky Tonk Woman
posted by ob at 7:16 PM on February 26

Courtesy of The Cowbell Project, we have... more cowbell songs! And here's ten more.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:17 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

a good place for her to start is simply hitting the cowbell when she'd hit the hi-hat.
posted by gnutron at 7:18 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Rock of Ages, Def Leppard
posted by panamax at 7:35 PM on February 26

"Little Sister" by Queens of the Stone Age.
posted by lemonwheel at 7:36 PM on February 26

Steven Adler (of G'n'r-when-they-were-good fame) used the cowbell a fair bit as an incidental. Listen to Appetite for Destruction and get some ideas from that, maybe.

Hell, listen to it anyway, as it is bloody good.
posted by Brockles at 7:37 PM on February 26

2nding Low Rider!!!!
posted by nightwood at 7:38 PM on February 26

The Clash's "Train in Vain," sometimes.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:41 PM on February 26

Working for the Weekend by Loverboy starts with a cowbell. It's one of the most immediately recognizable uses of cowbell in my mind, but then again I grew up with a teenage sister playing it constantly.
posted by tkolstee at 7:58 PM on February 26

I was going to recommend the Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey", which is on one of the lists above, since the cowbell part is so damned frantic.
posted by billtron at 8:06 PM on February 26

Early Throwing Muses (notably "Rabbit's Dying" off of Stand Up)
posted by cocoagirl at 8:13 PM on February 26

Honky Tonk Women?
posted by Phred182 at 8:15 PM on February 26

LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing at My House
Skip to 2:52.
posted by LecheFresca at 9:04 PM on February 26

Salsa music percussion can be simulated with a drum set. For that, a cowbell comes in handy.
posted by ctmf at 9:08 PM on February 26

Hmm... well, maybe she finds cowbell corny and doesn't actually want to play it. Was this her idea? I'm just imagining someone giving me a cowbell and expecting me to play it and having to say, "Are you for real?"
posted by loiseau at 9:12 PM on February 26

First thing to come to mind was Rilo Kiley: Breakin up
posted by lubujackson at 9:51 PM on February 26

(to loiseau) Yea, she went shopping with me and chipped in to buy it. We previously discussed getting a cowbell or a woodblock or something similar, and she thought a cowbell would be best. I've always known her to speak her mind, so I'm sure she'll tell me if/when she doesn't want it.
posted by worstnerdever at 10:07 PM on February 26

loiseau: "I'm just imagining someone giving me a cowbell and expecting me to play it and having to say, "Are you for real?"

Precisely Kenny Buttrey's reaction when recording Bob Dylan's Lay, Lady, Lay--that is, until he tried it. The following all quoted from Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, by Howard Sounes:

"The distinctive sound of "Lay, Lady, Lay" was created partly by chance after drummer Kenny Buttrey asked Bob what he heard in his head for the drum part. "Bongos," Bob replied, with a faraway look in his eye. Buttrey asked producer Bob Johnston, and received the equally strange suggestion that he play cow bell. Determined to prove how nonsensical the suggestions were, Buttrey found a beat-up cow bell and pair of bongos that looked like a souvenir from Tijuana, the skin attached with thumbtacks. (He had to run a cigarette lighter under the skin to tighten it and get a tone.) The young Kris Kristofferson was working as a janitor at the studio and Buttrey asked Kristofferson to hold the bongos and cow bell next to his drum kit during the take. Without having worked out any drum part, the drummer got the signal they were going to record and he improvised a distinctive tick-tock introduction on bongo and cow bell that blended perfectly with the shimmer of organ and Pete Drake's steel guitar. Bob stepped up to the microphone and delivered the seductive lyric in one take."

You can also find a google books excerpt from Dylan: A Biography by Bob Spitz which tells the same story, more from Buttrey's perspective and with a bit more humour. It's also too long for me to type.
posted by roombythelake at 11:02 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

The Beastie Boys' "Hey Ladies" features some heavy cowbell breakdowns. How Wikipedia overlooked this I'll never know. Please, bring some freshness to a fine old beastie rap (and then post it to MefiMusic).
posted by mumkin at 2:09 AM on February 27

Skid Row's "Monkey Business" (from the fantabulous-but-underrated "Slave to the Grind" album) has a brief-but-perfectly-placed use of cowbell during the vocal bridge after the second chorus.
posted by DWRoelands at 7:09 AM on February 27

Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band" has some prominent cowbell amidst the competent drum work of Don Brewer.
posted by andrewraff at 7:31 AM on February 27

To step back and offer a rule, rather than another example: when you want to put something percussive on every single beat (rather than 2 and 4, like a snare), that's the time to think about breaking out the cowbell.
posted by dfan at 10:00 AM on February 27

Born on the Bayou as done by Dash Rip Rock is a great classic cowbell song.

Maybe you're more into CCR, though.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:29 AM on February 27

"Couldn't get it right" by the Climax Blues Band.
posted by Killick at 11:47 AM on February 27