Burnin' For You

I agree with the reference to Kerouac, but Don't Fear the Reaper can't be based on The Stand, since it precedes The Stand by two years. there is a quote from Don't Fear the Reaper in The Stand. both are excellent either way! :)

You're wrong about The Stand (Don't Fear the Reaper came out two years before the book was published), but you might be on to something here. One of the most famous quotes from On the Road goes "...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" So there's a repeated "burn, burn burn" that matches the concept of the song lyrics pretty clearly, too.

I think you're onto something here. Buck is applying his life parallel to this Kerouac book. Like a lot of BOC songs, there are swirled trains of thought that are distinct and separate and here would be an example of that. His life of being a touring musician with pressures from the record company AND another thing that is hinted toward in "7 Screaming Diz-Busters", which is yet another song with two or three distinctly different trains of thought swirled together.

@OS Was Here <br /> I noticed that right away. "I've seen suns that were freezing and lives that were through", are the correct lyrics.

@OS Was Here Thank you for this clarification. I'd read about 20 years ago someone interpreting it as "I'd seen signs of what freezing their eyes would prove" and though I never was able to make out what they were saying since it was first played on the radio and many years playing the album and the song many times, this never fit. What they printed here was even further. Thank for clarifying this now after mishearing (or being unable to hear) the words for what has been now 38 years.

@Unknown Soldier what you describe would be the unspoken trade-off of the pact this song is about and the "between the lines" sub-narrative. A big trade off "living for giving the devil his due" and the home he will never have, which includes the regular things everyone needs. Anyone who has traveled for their career knows what this feels like, but turn it up many notches of intensity with the trappings of being a touring rock star. It's not really fun or glamorous, especially once reaching your 30s, which Buck would have been by the time he wrote this. The stories we have heard of with Led Zeppelin and The Who were the stories of very young men who were otherwise BORED and entertaining themselves. That special, sweet regular girl who makes a house a home is never going to wait around for THAT, and often not even for a tame and mature touring musician. She has her needs, too.<br /> <br /> [@everyone: sorry for the duplicate comment here] <br /> <br /> The normal life, that love of that regular "girl next door" who could never bear the continuous journeying of this hellbound Path, the abandonment of something more beautiful and genuine than anything that will ever be discovered on the Great Adventure ensuing from this Faustian agreement that in the end will leave the author burning for eternity.

@BloodReign Yes, still to this very day, Eric and Buck continue. Just saw an ad for BOC playing locally last night. Touring has always been the top source of income for recording artists, with second being merchandise (unless you're a band like KIss, then THAT is first, at least for the trademark owner(s) within the band) with record sales being at the low end of their income percentage, especially today.

@xshufflemuffin that would be the unspoken trade-off of the pact this song is about. The normal life, that love of that regular "girl next door" who could never bear the continuous journeying of this hellbound Path, the abandonment of something more beautiful and genuine than anything that will ever be discovered on the Great Adventure ensuing from this Faustian agreement that in the end will leave the author burning for eternity

@romefalls yes, Randy91 nails it for this song (and I left comment there) but as for DFTR, the Stand came out two years afterwards and made reference to the song, not the other way around. It may not be Robert Johnson he is making reference to, but instead doing the same as what Robert Johnson became famous for, even more than his musical legacy. Where DFTR is clearly about the subject of suicide, this one is clearly about a Faustian pact, but then swirled together with a second train of thought regarding the author's own life being parallel Keruac's "On the Road" with the continuous touring that is required as a result of the pact

@RedKing As printed, I believe you are right. However, it could also mean time to play besides, as in devil's advocate (playing with the "devil" theme here). But that would be implied, an extension of what is the beauty of BOC's writing style - they intentionally load their lyrics with entendre, ambiguity, swirls of multiple trains of thought (this one has at least two ideas swirled together) leaving doors wide open to interpretation and imagination.