Harvest Moon

Blue Oyster Cult common sings about mysterious and spooky stuff. To me, this song is about a haunted area where stuff comes out at night around the harvest moon perhaps the ghosts of those that the Spaniards killed. That's why earlier settlers livestock started disappearing and they sold the land. The guy who owns it after him talks about how there hasn't been any trouble in a decade which is followed by the new owner's daughter disappearing.

I guess the reason I say this is because at the end of the song, it talks about how they all get found someday, in the same way. Obviously, they're all found dead.

A spooky, eerie song that I think is their best. I'm also an autumn baby so I have a special love for the song too.

I completely agree with disaster... fall is wonderful... This song always makes me think of fall weather, gray days and leaves changing, and especially fall nights, walking with the trees all rustley and the moon shining. (incidentally, that's my favorite line, too...)

It also has the Lovecraft-ish idea of something hidden that is taking a young person as a sacrifice every year. Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" has a section that resonates very well with this song! Don't want to do a spoiler, but a teen vanishes from a certain small town each year, and it's assumed that they've run away to L.A. or Chicago.

One thing that makes the lyrics that extra bit of creepy is that the narrator seems so neutral towards all these things happening. Even though he hears strange noises in the night, children disappearing and later found dead, he still ”loves this time of year”. Maybe because all these horrible things dosn't affect him directly as he lives his simple life alone, covering his own needs.

Why did the Spaniards burn it all down before they left? What was the purpose? Did something scare them away?

Did the Coby's inexperience with livestock during harsh winters ceal the faith of the animals or did something else arrive with the winter that caused it all to go so wrong?

It seems as something plagues the village and whatever it is, it arrives with the winter. Something that causes children to disappear, something that kills livestock and so on.

Why dosn't the narrator seem bothered about this?

It seems like he simply sees all these things as normal since it's always been part of the history and as a result he is able to not put that much value into thinking about it and simply enjoy the seasonal transition from summer to winter with the lovely scenaries that the Autumn brings instead. That would explain why he is refering to what other people are saying when he finally sells the farm, since his experience is biased from the fact that he hasn't any other references I guess.

This songs about a beast that preys on the small town during the winter, the beast is up for your interpretation but most popularly it's preceived as a werewolf or dogman-like creature

this song is awesome. i live for the fall. i like the part when it says young people feelin restless, old people feelin old...aint that the truth

Kind of a funny story, well not really funny but he tells how great the farmhouse is then that hes selling it and theres never trouble and finally how a girl was mudered around there.

The first thing I noticed about this song was its striking similarity to a videogame that came out around the same time, Harvest Moon for the SNES in 1997. The Videogame dealt with farming, life, and changing seasons I doubt they are linked but it's still an odd coincidence

I think the meaning is simple. Don't take life for granted and live every, single day like it's your last!

I am almost certain this song has both more and less meaning than everyone is attributing to it. I'm pretty sure it's just about a marginally poor farming town that gets hit really had by winter every so often and the narrator is just moving away from his family farm. There is no "boogie man" who comes with winter, winter is just cold and hard to prepare for, hence the "early snow" killing the livestock. And the girl disappearing is just a common occurrence of guts getting lost and dying in the cold and not getting found until the spring thaw when they get uncovered by the melting snow and start to decompose (being the way they are always found). I'm pretty sure this is just a song about the vaguely depressing situation of living in a small farming town in the middle of nowhere.