POLL: Songs that have famously inspired murder or suicide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloomy_Sunday

Metallica's "No Remorse" (http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/kunkle947.htm)

Wasn't there a case in the 90s when some teen committed suicide, and he had scraped the lyrics of some Metallica song to the hood of his car or something, and Metallica was blamed for that? My memory is kinda hazy, but I remember people talking about that back then.

I thought I remembered there being a Metallica one, but I wasn't sure.

I will never understand why metal music "inspires" people to do horrible things. I find 90s alt rock more depressing.

Also, was there a particular Marilyn Manson song that was supposed to inspire the Columbine shootings, or was it just a general obsession with the band/man?

errrr, the Coumbine dudes weren't really into Manson. They were big KMFDM fans, though.

Hmm, I recall there being a MM connection, but maybe that was drummed up by reactionary media people.

I thought they were into Manson? Wasn't this "connection" the reason he was interviewed in Bowling for Columbine?

I've not seen it, but if he was interviewed then it's definitely not my imagination.

From what I remember, Manson was near the height of his controversy and a bunch of idiot parent-group types immediately started pointing fingers after the killings went down and he used that as an opportunity to get really publicly vocal against censorship. I remember reading some in-depth RS article where they talked about how the 2 guys weren't all that into MM and were more into 80s industrial.

Okay, that rings a little truer now that I think about it.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've heard Billie Holiday's "Gloomy Sunday" before, but I had no idea the song itself had such a dark history. It's pretty fucking heavy, though.

No Jeff Dahmer faves?

I will never understand why metal music "inspires" people to do horrible things.

It inspires people to form metal bands, for a start.

LOL

I was going to suggest 'Gloomy Sunday'.

Seeing as I would wager that most of these songs didn't really inspire the murder or suicide, how about Negativland's Christianity is Stupid?

Ozzy- Suicide Solution

On January 13, 1986, Osbourne was taken to court by the parents of John McCollum, a teenager who shot himself in the head while listening to this song. What is mostly overlooked is that John was reported to have a depression illness. Although the court cleared Osbourne in the case, many listeners continue to wonder what Osbourne was saying part way through the song. Osbourne had a habit of talking or yelling things while recording the song, for example, singing "Cocaine" during the Black Sabbath song "Snowblind." He would often repeat these live, but sound engineers usually edited such interjections out of the records. IBAR, The Institute for Bio-Acoustics Research, analyzed the song and found that subliminal message-like noises were recorded in the song; Osbourne, however, denied anything of the sort. Lyricist Bob Daisley and Osbourne himself both claimed that Ozzy said, "Get the flaps out," referring to a part of the female anatomy. However, some claim that Ozzy said, "Get the glass shoot," "Let yourself go," "Get the fucking gun" or "Get the gun, get the gun, shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot," both of which supported the court case [2]. Either "Get the flask out" or "Get the shot glass," however, were more logical translations, since the song is dealing with alcohol.

xp Tuomas: The Metallica suicide song is Fade to Black, I think.

I always heard it was:

Why try?
Why try?
Why try?
Get the gun and try it - shoot, shoot, shoot!

xp

Odd that there don't seem to be any specific Hip Hop songs tied to murders by the media.

I am sure "Macarena" and "The Ketchup Song" inspired a lot of murders and suicides, although there is no evidence of it.

even if it was all fake, i think the best example of this would be negativland's "christianity is stupid" and the followup, "helter stupid." it takes this whole idea and flips it on its head.

How 'bout "The Idiot"?

you'd have to say that iggy and herzog and joy division are responsible for that one...

Also, "Bananaphone".

yeah, probably more this song really:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUcTvhyof8I

xp

get the flaps out

LOL

No "Don't Fear The Reaper," no credibility.

Neil Young, "My My, Hey hey"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmNApZRy3wk

“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07karaoke.html

^ WTF Filipino Sinatra purists!

love this article

head first this time, dive right in

voted other-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7yQwQtSN7M

There was a guy who murdered his mother after listening to Dylan's 'One More Cup Of Coffee' a bunch of times, no lie. IIRC this was in the early nineties or late eighties.

get the flaps out

― the most sacred couple in Christendom (J0hn D.), Thursday, March 11, 2010 1:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^^^^

Maybe Nirvana - Polly? From the Incesticide liner notes:

Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song "Polly." I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience.

Linkin Park - One Step Closer, supposedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Andrew_Williams#Linkin_Park

Howbout that lunatic who killed Dimebag Darrell and those other folks at the Damageplan concert - wasn't that triggered by a delusion that Pantera had stolen his thoughts and turned them into a song? (Dunno the song or songs in question)

No "Don't Fear The Reaper," no credibility.

I know the song itself is about a lovers' pact suicide, but is it linked with anything in the real world?

It used to be said to be linked with lover's pact suicides in the real world too (usually after high school proms or homecoming dances in the late '70s), but for all I know, that might've been an urban myth. (They were still famous where I grew up, though.)

Actually though, haven't there also always been stories about "Gloomy Sunday" by Billie Holiday inspiring suicides in the real world?

Upthread, even! : )

Yeah, upthread. Also, I don't think the stories were about the Billie Holiday version, but the earlier ones - it's known as the Hungarian Suicide Song.

I have about 7 versions, by the way, and Billie's towers above all of the rest.

During the Gulf War, City College of New York professor Jonathan Pieslak read that 40% of Slayer’s fan mail was from soldiers stationed in Iraq. So he started researching the types of music that soldiers listen to and why. According to Pieslak’s website, the goal of his research "is to gain an understanding of how soldiers listen to music, what they listen to, and how they feel music may have affected them."

Pieslak discovered that Metallica, Eminem, and Slayer are popular with our men and women overseas. Listen to the sound clips on the Guardian’s site and you’ll hear soldiers talk about their relationship to music during battle. They acknowledge the unnaturalness of humans killing each other, so they use extreme music to manufacture aggression. Before a mission, a particular group of soldiers would scream the lyrics to Eminem's "Go To Sleep" ("Now go to sleep bitch / Die, motherfucker, die! / Ugh, time's up, bitch, close ya eyes / Go to sleep, bitch! / Why are you still alive? / How many times I gotta tell ya, close ya eyes?"). Another group assembled a sound system on their armored truck, and while they were on patrol, they would blast old-school Metallica: "Seek and Destroy," "The Four Horsemen," "One," and "Sanitarium." While the psychology of the music’s affect on the soldiers’ brains runs deep, the most basic duty that the music performed was to act as an impetus for decent, respectable humans to dehumanize themselves and get their Hulk on. The hardest part, one imagines, is the return trip.

http://decibelmagazine.com/Content.aspx?ncid=334832

Actually, I just checked the link re: Gloomy Sunday, and it doesn't specify which version of the song is linked to suicides, so it's probably all of them, including BH.

Well, maybe not the Peter Wolf version. (Not so sure about the Lydia Lunch one.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

well if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.