I’m waiting for someone to put more cowbell into Don’t Fear the Reaper. It’s what Walken would have wanted, really. In the literary world, we call that catharsis.
That’s real entertainment, though I would have handled the cowbell differently on Born to Run. I’d have kept a straight 1-2-3-4 on the intro then gone to a 2-4 on the first part of the first verse gradually adding some syncopation then really go to town on “…baby we were born to ruuuuun”.
According to Paul Tyler in the recently published book “the Hayloft Gang” (pub. University of Illinois Press) cowbells were used at radio broadcast barn dances in the 1920s.
There was even a musician called Cowbell Pete.