A Tribute to the Cowbell
“I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell”
Bruce Dickinson (Christopher Walken), Saturday Night Live
The cowbell is much older than you think it is. The oldest found cowbells date back over 5,000 years, to Neolithic China. While first made of pottery, cowbells were eventually forged from metal, first by the Longshan and Erlitou cultures of North China. The cowbell did not appear in the Western hemisphere until many centuries later, gradually emerging across Europe over the course of the Middle Ages. The purpose of the cowbell is simple––the noise of the bell allows shepherds and herders to keep track of livestock. In some cultures, different bells were used to indicate different types of animals. For example, Spanish goat herders used different bells to differentiate between male and female goats, while early English shepherds placed a bell on the neck of the lead sheep, to track the movements of the entire herd. The latter is where we get the term “bellwether” from. Despite this ancient origin, the cowbell has not been used in music for quite so long. In 1904, Richard Strauss used tuned cowbells in An Alpine Symphony to evoke the bucolic sound of the countryside where he spent his youth, as did Gustav Mahler in the same year with his “Symphony No. 6.” However, the cowbell as we know it––the untuned cowbell––first emerged in Latin American music of the 1920s. These cowbells were struck with a stick and often mounted atop timbales (in the Caribbean). As the music of Latin America (and especially Brazil and Cuba) spread throughout the western hemisphere, the salt-of-the-earth cowbell stuck around in American music.
I was inspired to write this piece when my friend Emma played me Harry Styles’s “Only Angel,” from his 2017 self-titled debut. The song adds a cowbell in its second chorus, playing a simple four-count beat (where the cowbell is struck in time with the beat of the song, almost like a metronome). When the cowbell entered the sonic palette, bursting in like a bull (or cow) in a china shop, it put the biggest, cheesiest smile on my face. The cowbell is at once both incredibly versatile and completely invariant. It has worked its way into the repertoire of nearly every genre of music, all while having the same sound.
Rockin’ out with the cowbell
“Only Angel” is, through and through, a sonic love letter to classic rock. Some of the earliest and most iconic uses of the cowbell can be seen in the golden age of classic rock. Most of these songs used cowbell to add texture to the drums and to keep the beat, like a metronome. “Stone Free” by Jimi Hendrix exemplifies this. The cowbell does not stand out, but rather sits in the mix, adding spice to the percussion. Similarly, The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” sits the cowbell high in the mix. Iconic songs of this era feature the cowbell as a timekeeper, like “Mississippi Queen,” “Low Rider,” and “Hair of the Dog.” Likewise, Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” uses cowbell to add extra variety to its feature-length drum solo. “Grazing in the Grass” by Friends of Destruction takes the cowbell at face value, with lyrics about how “It sure is mellow grazin’ in the grass.” The song is 100% about smoking weed, but cows, in addition to stoned humans, also graze in the grass. In an example less laced with entendre, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote “Honky Tonk Women” while vacationing at a ranch in rural Brazil over the holiday season in 1968. The writing duo drew both from the pastoral origins of the cowbell as well as from the music of the Brazilians around them. Meanwhile, the lyrics set “Honky Tonk Woman” in Tennessee and Mississippi, drawing on rural America. A modern example of using the cowbell to evoke a southern sensibility is Don Broco’s “Everbody,” a cowboy romp that uses a syncopated cowbell in its heavy choruses.
As rock transitioned to a new era, songs like “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, “Photograph” and “Foolin’” by Def Leppard, “Dream Police” by Cheap Trick, and “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads incorporated the cowbell in new ways. By this point, in the 1980s, the cowbell came to be used to accentuate the eccentricities and syncopation of drum beats. “Endorphinmachine,” from Prince’s Gold is an excellent example of this, as the ever-present cowbell adds a driving sense of momentum to the track and creates syncopation with the compressed drums and lead guitar. Guns N’ Roses made ample use of the cowbell, iconically so in “Welcome to the Jungle,” but also in “Nightrain” and the contentious 2008 track “Chinese Democracy.” However, the king of the cowbell is Blue Öyster Cult, and their 1976 hit, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” The cowbell is subtle, adding texture to the rhythm section, but its constant clanging acts like a ticking clock, counting the minutes until the reaper comes. This song was the subject of a legendary Saturday Night Live Sketch, “More Cowbell”, which fictionalized the song’s recording, and gave birth to the iconic line: “I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.” Since that 2001 sketch, the cowbell has enjoyed a slight renaissance, with many bands using the instrument to evoke the sound of classic rock. Some modern cowbell tracks include:
“Only Angel” - Harry Styles, Harry Styles (2017)
“The New Black” - Every Time I Die, The New Phenomenon (2006)
“Do You Wanna Rock” - Danko Jones, Fire Music (2016)
“Mongoose” - Fu Manchu, Godzilla’s / Eatin’ Dust (2010)
“Eat Your Heart Out” - KISS, Monster (2010)
“In and Out of Youth” - Young Widows, In and Out of Youth and Lightness (2011)
“Everybody” - Don Broco, TECHNOLOGY (2018)
“The Chaser” - Twin Atlantic, GLA (2016)
The Cowbell in Punk
Perhaps surprisingly, there is a long cowbell tradition in punk and punk-inspired or punk-adjacent music. U2 used the cowbell to put the “punk” in post-punk on “The Refugee,” from their third album War. A decade later, Rage Against the Machine used the cowbell to iconic effect in the intro of “Killing In The Name,” as well as in “Freedom.” The cowbell remains a staple of drummer Brad Wilk’s kit in live concerts, using it extensively in drum fills. In pop-punk, The Offspring use the cowbell to add a playful tock to “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” while Travis Barker’s cowbell adds to the texture of the verse on Blink-182’s “Feeling This.”
Gettin’ funky with the cowbell
Another where the cowbell shines is in disco and funk. The cowbell, as well as other elements of Latin percussion, appear across the disco genre, but here are five examples that stand out:
“Holiday” - Madonna, Madonna (1983)
“Handsome Man” - Sparkle, Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage (1978)
“Funkytown” - Lipps Inc., Mouth to Mouth (1979)
“Life Is a Circle” - Teddy Pendergrass, Teddy (1979)
“Jive Talkin’ - From ‘Saturday Night Fever’ soundtrack” - Bee Gees, Main Course (1975)
In modern pop, artists will use the cowbell to evoke the sound of disco. Foo Fighters use disco and funk percussion extensively in their 2021 record Medicine At Midnight, but “Cloudspotter” stands out with its offbeat cowbells in the verse. Another example can be found in Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch,” off the Birds of Prey soundtrack.
Latin American funk, which uses the cowbell extensively, has also heavily influenced modern African music, evidenced in Kuenda Bonga’s “Balumekeno,” a track that blends Angolan music (called Semba) with influences from the Portuguese and Brazillian diaspora. For a modern example, look at Orchestra Baobab’s “Nijaay,” from their 2007 album Made in Dakar.
Cowbell masters: Santana
Carlos Santana is the master of cowbell. Santana comes from the tradition of Latin American music and came to prominence during the golden age of classic rock. Santana uses the cowbell extensively, more than perhaps any other artist. His turn-of-the-century crossover hit with Rob Thomas, “Smooth,” of course makes use of the cowbell, but his early work has cowbell all over it:
“Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen” - Santana, Abraxas (1970)
“Oye Como Va” - Santana, Abraxas (1970)
“Batuka” - Santana, Santana III (1971)
“Taboo” - Santana, Santana III (1971)
Santana loves the cowbell so much that he even adds cowbell to songs that did not originally have cowbell in them! Take a look at his cover of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” from his album of covers, Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time. It features another collaboration with Rob Thomas, and, more importantly, a heaping helping of cowbell. He does the same with “Back in Black” turning the AC/DC song into a funky rap track with Nas
Hip-Hop and the Cowbell
This history of the cowbell in funk has also permeated into hip-hop. The cowbell has been a part of rap music since the very beginning. In 1979, the Sugarhill Gang released “Rapper’s Delight,” the first rap song to chart in the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching number one in Canada!) The song features the cowbell, sampling “Good Times” by Chic. Cowbell can be found in LL Cool J’s “Rock The Bells,’ the Beastie Boys’ “Hey Ladies,” and Kanye West’s “Good Morning.” While the majority of cowbells are acoustic, it’s also worth mentioning that the Roland TR-808 drum machine (the foundational sound of a lot of modern drum machines) had a cowbell sound, one that has become a staple of many hip-hop genres. In particular, I’d like to highlight “drift phonk,” a modern SoundCloud genre that heavily uses the 808 cowbell. It is a difficult genre to describe, but the sound is very distinctive. Associated with TikTok and the drifting community, drift phonk originated in Russia, is very high-tempo, uses a lot of cowbell, and typically has high bass and a distorted sound. I’ve picked “EXPLOIT” by Send 1 and “ZODD” by Haarper as examples, but nearly all drift phonk songs use the cowbell.
The Future of the Cowbell
The cowbell has existed for millennia, and it will continue to exist. Percussion trends come and go, but the cowbell has endured for generations, enthralling musicians of all backgrounds with its simple clanging sound. From keeping time and producing funky rhythms, to drifting around a corner and keeping livestock in line, the cowbell shows us that instruments are what we make of them.