Comments on: Desperately Seeking Cowbell

Question: Desperately Seeking Cowbell

worstnerdever — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:58:08 -0800

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.

By: box

box — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:00:02 -0800

As you may already know, Wikipedia has a few.

By: ten pounds of inedita

ten pounds of inedita — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:00:12 -0800

"Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth, is the 'other classic cowbell song', IMHO.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:04:47 -0800

Telephone Thing by the Fall.

By: lonefrontranger

lonefrontranger — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:07:24 -0800

Low Rider, by War for an older-skool feel.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:11:31 -0800

Midnight Oil. Power and the Passion

By: Bugg

Bugg — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:12:36 -0800

Radiohead, Electioneering, is the one that comes to my mind. I don't know if you'd consider it particularly interesting use though.

By: slogger

slogger — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:15:18 -0800

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

Why on Earth do I know that?

By: ob

ob — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:16:51 -0800

Well a classic cowbell song is Honky Tonk Woman

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:17:37 -0800

Courtesy of The Cowbell Project, we have... more cowbell songs! And here's ten more.

By: gnutron

gnutron — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:18:55 -0800

a good place for her to start is simply hitting the cowbell when she'd hit the hi-hat.

By: panamax

panamax — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:35:21 -0800

Rock of Ages, Def Leppard

By: lemonwheel

lemonwheel — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:36:12 -0800

"Little Sister" by Queens of the Stone Age.

By: Brockles

Brockles — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:37:51 -0800

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.

By: nightwood

nightwood — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:38:19 -0800

2nding Low Rider!!!!

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:41:07 -0800

The Clash's "Train in Vain," sometimes.

By: tkolstee

tkolstee — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:58:59 -0800

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.

By: billtron

billtron — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:06:12 -0800

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.

By: cocoagirl

cocoagirl — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:13:28 -0800

Early Throwing Muses (notably "Rabbit's Dying" off of Stand Up)

By: Phred182

Phred182 — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:15:44 -0800

Honky Tonk Women?

By: LecheFresca

LecheFresca — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:04:31 -0800

LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing at My House
Skip to 2:52.

By: ctmf

ctmf — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:08:26 -0800

Salsa music percussion can be simulated with a drum set. For that, a cowbell comes in handy.

By: loiseau

loiseau — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:12:38 -0800

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?"

By: lubujackson

lubujackson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:51:18 -0800

First thing to come to mind was Rilo Kiley: Breakin up

By: worstnerdever

worstnerdever — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:07:09 -0800

(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.

By: roombythelake

roombythelake — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:02:08 -0800

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.

By: mumkin

mumkin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:09:13 -0800

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).

By: DWRoelands

DWRoelands — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:09:49 -0800

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.

By: andrewraff

andrewraff — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:31:49 -0800

Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band" has some prominent cowbell amidst the competent drum work of Don Brewer.

By: dfan

dfan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:00:58 -0800

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.

By: Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:29:46 -0800

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

Maybe you're more into CCR, though.

By: Killick

Killick — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:47:03 -0800

"Couldn't get it right" by the Climax Blues Band.