Trey Barrineau|USA TODAY
It's taken 38 years, but somebody has finally fact-checkedBlue Oyster Cult's 1976 hard-rock hit(Don't Fear)The Reaper. Bruce Dickinson -- yes, THE Bruce Dickinson -- would be impressed.
Boing Boing really explored the space, and it seems ReapersongwriterDonald "Buck Dharma" Roeser way understated the number of people who die each day in thelyric"another 40,000 coming every day":
According to the World Health Organization, around 54.5 million people die annually. Which makes the "daily death rate" roughly 149,000. Of course, those are the current numbers. To be fair to Blue Oyster Cult, I found the death rate from 1976 (with the help of my friend Stephen McNeil). At the time "Don't Fear the Reaper" was released, the world population 4.1 billion, with a death rate 12.5/1000, which comes out to 140,000 per day. So the bad news is that Blue Oyster Cult is way off in their estimation of the death rate. But the good news is that you could quite easily change the lyrics to say "140,000 coming every day" and not screw with the meter too much.
The big question, though -- does this mean even more cowbell?
