Could the cowbell be the car wreck of the music world? The thing no one wishes for or expects, but something no one can turn away from.

So many songs are built carefully around guitars, a bass, keyboard, and drum kit. When done right, they fit together like puzzle pieces to create a special sound, sometimes destined to be a classic. 

But it’s possible for “lesser” instruments to play an important role in our favorite songs, with musicians throwing in a tambourine, harmonica, casaba, shaker, saxophone, triangle, and others for added depth or a more unique sound, even when they accompany other instruments in relative obscurity.

Often we hear them, but we don’t. You know what I mean? 

When mom puts salt in the pasta water, we don’t always taste it, but it makes the dish better. And when she doesn’t, we know something isn’t right, even if we don’t know what it is. Skilled musicians and composers know the atypical ingredients to sprinkle throughout a tune for the perfect balance or complement.

Then there’s the cowbell. Unmistakable. Unapologetic. Nearly impossible to mask. It’s the musical bull in a china shop. The cowbell seems to complement other instruments only by competing with them. Why the hell would you clang on a cowbell if you didn’t want everyone to hear it? 

Admit it, you’ve wished someone would stop banging on a cowbell at some time or another. There are few sounds worse coming from the stands right behind you at a football game or in the hands of a toddler running through the living room. Piercing, clanging, monotonous. 

But in the right tune? Magical. 

Thanks to the collision of the musical genius of Blue Oyster Cult in 1976, and the rhythmic gyrations of comedian Will Ferrell many years later, the cowbell has reached mythical status in rock and roll, elevating the simple instrument in a way that now when we hear it in a song, that tune immediately skyrockets up our list of favorites. Dare I say it achieves cult status? 

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” wasn’t the first or last rock tune to feature a cowbell, and honestly, it’s not the best. Some credit the R&B group Billy Ward and his Dominoes as one of the first to use a cowbell in rock and roll, but a more popular choice is Dale Hawkins in his tune “Susie-Q” – yes the same classic of Credence Clearwater Revival fame.

It’s impossible to know who was first to bang on a cowbell, but it’s not too hard to pick out some places over the years where it worked best with the most memorable results. There are some all-time classics that put the cowbell centerstage, and one did it better than all the rest.

Cowbell songs come in two flavors. One is like an appetizer, a kind of opening signature that immediately identifies the song. The other is as a lead instrument, when a percussionist drops the bomb on the lead guitar with a clanging bell and a drumstick, not so subtly assuming the identity of a tune from beginning to end.

Drummers want that in their arsenal. My daughter, a drummer of six years, lashed an old frying pan we tossed in the garbage to her drum kit to try and capture that sound. 

When you go to make a list of songs featuring a cowbell, it gets long very quickly. I’m not talking about every song that buries one somewhere, but songs familiar to us specifically because they feature a cowbell, or ones that wouldn’t be the iconic tune they are without it.

I’ve curated a limited list I believe best captures the magic of the cowbell. 

Credence included it on classics like “Down on the Corner” and “Born on the Bayou”, guaranteeing you’d think the band sprang from the ground somewhere in the deep South rather than from California. 

War and Carlos Santana ironically dressed up their smooth Latin-flavored rock classics like “Low Rider” and “Evil Ways” with the cowbell.

Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog” and Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” add depth with a cowbell essentially keeping time. It’s not the most recognizable part of these classics, but you can’t miss it.

Don’t think for a minute the cowbell missed any subgenres of rock, as even the psychedelic sounds of Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermints” and Neighb’rhood Childr’n’s “Long Years in Space” weave it deliriously into the mind-bending experience.

Def Lepard’s “Rock of Ages” teases us with a cowbell we might remember more if we weren’t so busy trying to figure out what “Gunter gleiben glauchen globen” meant or philosophizing about the benefits of burning out rather than fading away.

But what about the cowbell hall of fame? Three songs have reached mythical status in our music catalogs arguably because of the cowbell. Take it out, and each is a hollow metal bell of its former self. 

The Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman” is a perfect example. It’s an all-time rock and roll favorite, and is immediately recognizable because of the unique cowbell opening. Can you imagine a different intro?

One step above the Stones’ classic is “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad. Few songs fire up a rock and roll frenzy like this one, and the cowbell lays the foundation for everything else in this near-perfect tune. Spoiler alert, I’ll probably talk about this song many more times over the hopefully long life of this blog. It’s a favorite.

The time has come to crown cowbell royalty. Time to ring the bell for this cowbell heavyweight. That bell tolls for none other than The Chambers Brothers’ “Time has Come Today.” Nowhere has the cowbell been more critical, sounded more appropriate, or played a bigger role than in this classic.

The band could have chosen so many different directions, and maybe produced a great song. Maybe without it, they’d have produced nothing more than a long-lost B side. But they let it shine, and the cowbell masterfully manages the up and down tempo throughout, marking the passing of time even as we listen, working itself into a fevered tempo.

Can you think of something better? Give the list a listen, mull it over, and let me know if you agree. Let me know if you think I missed any critical pieces in the cowbell canon, or if for you, a different tune rings the victory bell.

No matter your favorite, Christopher Walken was right, we could all use a little more cowbell.