I don’t condone torture, unless it’s enacted against people I just can’t stand, but I’m intrigued by this “Torture Playlist,” published online by Mother Jones yesterday. It’s comprised of songs reportedly used by U.S. military prison guards and interrogators to shock detainees into submission.
| The Torture Playlist | |
|---|---|
| Deicide | Fuck Your God |
| Dope | Die MF Die |
| Dope | Take Your Best Shot |
| Eminem | White America |
| Eminem | Kim |
| Barney & Co. | Barney & Friends Theme Song |
| Drowning Pool | Bodies |
| Metallica | Enter Sandman |
| Morris the Cat | Meow Mix Theme Song |
| a bunch of shrieking kids | Sesame Street Theme Song |
| David Gray | Babylon |
| Bruce Springsteen | Born in the U.S.A. |
| AC/DC | Shoot to Thrill |
| AC/DC | Hells Bells |
| The Bee Gees | Stayin’ Alive |
| 2Pac | All Eyez on Me |
| Christina Aguilera featuring Redman | Dirrty |
| Neil Diamond | America |
| Rage Against the Machine | Bulls on Parade |
| Don McLean | American Pie |
| Saliva | Click Click Boom |
| Matchbox 20 | Cold |
| Hed PE | Dawn Dive |
| Prince | Raspberry Beret |
Where to start?
First, I love that the list appears to have been assembled by white, 19-year-old males from backwater towns like Orrick, Missouri, using songs that they personally find annoying or have on their iPods as “inspiration” to get them fired up in the morning. That’s great.
I approve of “America,” one of my favorite Neil songs. Need I mention that he sang it during the televised unveiling of the new-and-improved Statue of Liberty? You can’t get served a much more patriotic slice of American cheese than that.
But Prince? If you’re going for white-hot torture, I’d turn to the Purple One’s Batman soundtrack, specifically “Batdance,” a six-minute-plus annoyance larded with drum machines and samples from the movie.
And so much missing. Where’s “Believe” by Cher? No matter breaking the spirit of a terror suspect; her Auto-Tuned warble in that song could blast holes in Formica.
Where’s “Shine” by Collective Soul, reportedly a favorite of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho?
Where’s any classical music, least of which Night on Bald Mountain? It ain’t highfalutin; haven’t these kids seen Fantasia?
And most importantly, where’s the Tuvan throat singing? As Katie will confirm, we used to play this music at closing time over the store-wide sound system at Booksellers, the independent bookstore at which we worked in Cleveland. It effectively drove out straggling customers but had no apparent effect on the homeless guy who would shamble in to wash his hair in the bookstore’s restroom toilet. No music could deter Mr. Ty-D-Dreads.
Related: Read this brief history of annoying songs played by the military that includes a playlist from the army’s boomboxing of Manuel Noriega in 1989, the first instance I remember reading about regarding music as psych-ops.