Heavy Metal and the Tucson Shootings

Drowning Pool, the metal band whose song "Bodies" made an appearance on alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner's MySpace page, has responded to the very stupid suggestion that their dumb song had anything to do with last Saturday's horrific crimes. As The Daily Caller reports:

A recent Washington Post article chronicles instances in which music has apparently influenced killers, most notably Charles Manson, whose fascination with the Beatles song "Helter Skelter" guided some of the killings for which he was convicted.

The Post noted similar parallels in a song by the heavy metal band Drowning Pool: "'Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor,' the singer barks in a refrain that carries an eerie echo in the context of the shooting rampage Saturday in Tucson."

Members of Drowning Pool disagree. "'Bodies' was written about the brotherhood of the mosh pit and the respect people have for each other in the pit. If you push others down, you have to pick them back up. It was never about violence. It's about a certain amount of respect and a code," the band said in a statement

Read the whole story here. Brian Doherty discusses Loughner and Drowning Pool here.

Comments

[QuietDesperation]

Wow. Took a while to blame that there “rock and roll” music the kids are into these days.

Next up in the blame parade: video games!

[The Rogue Economist]

Actually, the WSJ had mentioned that on Monday already…

http://online.wsj.com/article/…..ss_US_News

[QuietDesperation]

Awesome.

Do we dare hope Ms. Judy Clarke invokes the Twinkie defense?

[Abdul]

If they said it was a derogatory satire of Glenn Beck, they’d be totally off the hook.

[Rich]

‘Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor,’ the singer barks in a refrain that carries an eerie echo in the context of the shooting rampage Saturday in Tucson portions of the Holy Bible, etc., etc.

As Stossel would say, ….

[Warty]

The second-worst part about this shooting is that it’s gotten that terrible song stuck in my head. Ugh.

[SugarFree]

Why couldn’t he have liked rap? Then we could call all this speculation what it really is: racism.

[Siddy Fence]

Dat be bad.

[Episiarch]

Or jazz!

[SugarFree]

Rap/Hip Hop has so much more potential. I mean, the complex lyrics and intricate ideas on display open themselves up for the paranoid mind to weave elaborate fantasies about. For example, this gives you wealth of ideas to draw from:

Yeah, uh huh, you know what it is
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow

[Episiarch]

The killer bees!

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

I am rather satisfied to be able to say I have no idea what you’re referring to. And no, thank you, don’t bother linking, because I’m confident I don’t want to know.

[SugarFree]

Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Let us not forget:
I whip my hair back and forth…

[CoyoteBlue]

Over a dozen people have been murdered because of that song.

When will the slaughter end?
When?

[fresno dan]

At this point, I can’t even parody.

[Taxed Enough Already]

There’s little doubt this nihilistic drek is contributing to the decline of our society.

Cultural Marxism, in the form of violent/sexual Hollywood movies, “modern” art, heavy metal music and “rap” combined with dangerous narcotics and loose morals around sex destroys ones ability to self-govern.

Virtue is required for Liberty to flourish. The Left knows this–that’s why they’re trying their best to destroy virture through their Cultural Marxist trash culture.

[Warty]

I can’t decide if you’re an excellent troll or just magnificently retarded. In any case, you get Malevolent Creation.

[Taxed Enough Already]

Go read Cleon Susken’s “The Naked Communist”. Many of the cultural goals of the Communists have come true already, and their platform included the promotion of dark, violent, nihilistic music.

[Al]

Tipper?

[MNG]

Didn’t you read Jesse Walker’s post here last week about the USSR’s anti-rock music propaganda? The Soviets pushed opera, ballet and chess on their populace.

[Taxed Enough Already]

That was AFTER the revolution. I’m talking about how they weaken society in preparation for it–which the Bolsheviks did in the 1920s through things like easy divorce, promotion of abortion, “modern” art and architecture, the ridicule of Judeo-Christianity, etc.

[Warty]

In the 1920s, but before the revolution, right?

[waffles]

you are beautifully ignorant, if you weren’t real. alas, your paranoid rantings are real, and dangerous. I hope someone forcefully institutionalizes you before it’s too late. We must not let your dangerous rhetoric continue unabated.

[SugarFree]

It’s the spoofer than ran a few good games back before Christmas.

[Warty]

His referring to Skousen finally convinced me that he’s just a highly skilled troll. Bravo, though.

[Episiarch]

Hey, let’s not complain about a skilled troll. It’s actually refreshing compared to most of our current crop.

[SugarFree]

I’m not complaining. I’m helping him keep it fresh.

[Episiarch]

Stop complaining about me accusing you of complaining, complainer.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Bunch of fucking whiners.

[SugarFree]

You are the complainingest complainer that ever complained, you complainistic complain-o-tron.

[Episiarch]

And you just…keep…complaining.

[Not Really Episiarch]

Fuck the politician!

[Taxed Enough Already]

Sorry, Skousen.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

You’re Skous-ed.

[MNG]

I love the Cultural Marxism meme, can you tell us more please?

[Almanian]

You again?

[Adonisus]

Oh wonderful, our idiotic John Bircher is back.

[cynical]

“nihilistic”

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[janet napolitano]

I think they should have a Heavy Metal Watch List?. Top of the list, hmm…

[Kristen]

Just put all heavy metal band members on the sex predator list and make them wear GPS devices.

[January]

“‘Bodies’ was written about the brotherhood of the mosh pit and the respect people have for each other in the pit. If you push others down, you have to pick them back up. It was never about violence. It’s about a certain amount of respect and a code,”

Oh, and I guess they are just surveyor’s symbols too.

[Hugh]

Hey, you’re Miss January, aren’t you?

[CoyoteBlue]

THIS is what Palin should have said.

She should have gone on camera and screamed “IT WASN’T A MAP TARGETING MY POLITICAL ENEMIES,it was about the brotherhood of the mosh pit and the respect people have for each other in the pit. If you push others down, you have to pick them back up. It was never about violence. It’s about a certain amount of respect and a code.”

[Ira]

I blame this all on Bing Crosby, who made pot smoking and popular music “acceptable.”

[Uncle Charlie]

You know what they were really talking about, man? The Apocalypse! That’s why they were on the LAST train to Clarkesville.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Yeah, and when they said “I can be there by 4:30”, maybe they really wanted to say “4:20” but the record company wouldn’t let them because it’s a drug reference, y’know?

[Almanian]

the brotherhood of the mosh pit

I thought Beavis and Butthead was the end of civilization, but this quote actually IS evidence of the end of civilization.

the brotherhood of the mosh pit

Really?

** face palm **

[Almanian]

I got yer “brotherhood of the mosh pit” RIGHT HERE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfjTZLxekig

[Warty]

I had purged that song from my memory, you son of a bitch. You are worse than Hitler.

[The Ghost of John Lennon]

I really wish I never had written “Hapiness is a Warm Gun.”

Because, you know, all that does is incite violence like this.

[The Ghost of John Lennon]

I also wish I used preview and checked my spelling before hitting Submit.

[waffles]

I wish I hadn’t read Catcher in the Rye. Now all I can think about is KILL JOHN LENNON.

[Mark David Chapman]

I’m way ahead of you.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

I really think it was Wierd Al’s “White and Nerdy” that pushed him over the edge. I mean, what a hate-filled, racist, fear-mongering song.

[Kristen]

Y’all are so wrong, you’re just wrong things from wrongville. It’s all about Neil Diamond. Sooleimon? That’s an Ay-rab name! And that dirge called Morningside? Fuckin-a.

[Ken Shultz]

What’s absurd about going after this song and this band is that it completely misses the point.

There really are bands and songs–with video–that more or less advocate and glamorize lone wolf acts of terrorism.

Why not go after the real deal?

It’s like back in the ’80s when they’d play us Venom tracks backwards–and we’re all scratching our heads thinking, “Have you fundies bothered listening to what that track says forwards?”

Shultz’s Law of Social Dynamics #15: Would be censors never get the big picture.

[Ken Shultz]

Here’s Earth Crisis with a video featuring Walter Bond…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnlXrTfMx-s

Some people take their straight edge very seriously.

Here’s a report of Walter Bond, after that video, pleading guilty to burning down a sheep skin factory–apparently in the name of animal liberation.

How much press coverage did Walter Bond or Earth Crisis get?

Chances are you’ve never heard of either one–and why is that? How much of that has to do with the Second Amendment being seen by the left as a right wing fetish and Animal Liberation being seen on the left as a noble cause?

I don’t know. I just know that when somebody commits arson in the name of animal liberation, it doesn’t get national coverage the same way–and I don’t remember hearing about anybody going after the band that featured the perp in their video.

Doesn’t mean nobody criticized them, but the national media wasn’t talking about it days afterward–and nobody was going after left wing media. Nobody was going after aspiring presidential candidates on the left and trying to blame them for the arson either.

[Ozzy Osborne]

I should be blamed! I’m the prince of freaking darkness already! What? Where am I? Who are you people?

[P Brooks]

I just want them to ban Aaron Copland.

[The Gobbler]

funny!

[Ragin Cajun]

I once saw a movie about a guy eating some other guy’s liver while Bach was playing. Clearly, then, Baroque music contributed to his cannibalism.

[raptros-v76]

Still hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmu8ylLtJs
“I can only count to four! I can only count to four!…”
Classic.

[Johnny Longtorso]

I continue to whip my hair back and forth.

[JeremyR]

It’s funny though, one of Queen’s biggest hits (at least in the US) is “Another One Bites The Dust”, which near as I can tell, really is about killing people. (Unless the machine guns and bullets in the lyrics are metaphorical or something).

I can’t remember it every inciting someone to kill people.

And at the same time, how is it all these heavy metal bands try to have such a badass image, but all their song lyrics are really about really wimpy stuff? Stuff that Folk Singers would write (Ozzy Osbourne is a great example of this).

[restoration]

st article chronicles instances in which music has apparently influenced killers, most notably