Heavy Metal is Bad

A Mind The Gap post.

An explanation of the title is necessary.  Heavy metal means the musical genre, not one of the metals from the periodic table of elements. And bad means detrimental, not good.

This post has its roots in a stroll through blogging site tumblr's gratefuldead tagged posts and a press article about the German stuck in Guantanamo for a five year heavy metal concert, interrupted only by  some differently themed  torture sessions. Did the government pay royalties for that or just stamp the CDs "secret"?

The blogster, like everybody, has read many reports about the dirty war on terror and the use of heavy metal music, but it needed the imagery of tumblr to coax out the obvious: there is no way you could torture someone with Grateful Dead tunes.

Any experienced torturer, from the 3-year old screeching madly over a toy to the interrogation specialist at Gitmo (who would trade Gitmo for his 3-year old at home any time if he had the courage or could be sure that his successor was not a sadist) knows that you should not completely destroy the hearing of your subject.

Just in case one of the world's would be torturers ever thinks about trying the Dead for torture, either because they never heard the music or think that "The Dead" sounds sinister enough to try: here is why you should not.

Insults scribbled on a post-it note just don't have the same punch as a gorilla yell at a quarter inch of someone's ear. 

Decibel-wise that means you should not try to compensate for the friendliness and the thoughtfulness of the Dead tunes by adding a few dbs.

Let's face it, the lyrics of the Dead, even when out of tune, can be understood and many of the lyrics have that ghastly message of hope that precludes their use in torture.

Imagine the speakers at Gitmo blasting "We will survive", or "Something's got to give".  Even when the lyrics go dark, they overlay such happy rhythms and melodies that you smile like mad when "going down the road feeling bad".
All you would achieve with the stomping Iko-Iko is have a bunch of bearded guys interrupt their hunger strike and dance themselves to death.

By the way, that "German Taliban" has been living a pretty normal life after the German government let go of its refusal to take him back.

And if you ever manage to return Gitmo to the little backwater military base even your close Allies did not know or care about, maybe, just maybe, someone could sneak in a tape of Ripple for those you send home.

Or something from "Blues for Allah"?