Regarding “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, according to Wikipedia:
The song is about the inevitability of death and the foolishness of fearing it. The singer and lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, wrote it while thinking about what would happen if he died at a young age. He used Romeo and Juliet as an example of a couple who wanted to be together in the afterlife.He guessed that "40,000 men and women" died each day, and the figure was used several times in the lyrics, but it is about 100,000 too low.
Lyrics such as "Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity" led many listeners to interpret the song to be about a murder–suicide pact.Dharma said he was appalled that some listeners interpreted the song as encouraging suicide. He instead meant the lyrics as a plea not to fear death, as opposed to actively bringing it about, and said it was "a love song where the love transcends the actual physical existence of the partners".
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