Dead Metal

Early in June, American death metal band Dying Fetus (sic) held a concert in this city. (I didn't attend because death metal isn't my thing and because Dying Fetus' [sic] lyrics are far too profound for me.)

Profound, did I say? Yes, this is profound, ladies and gentlemen:

Excruciating terror, the violations you delight in
Useless human excrement, you deserve a life of shit
Make you suffer ruthlessness, I cannot relinquish the honor*
Soul I condemn, fucking dead
Nothing will ever be made right again ^[Source]

*sic

Profound, I tell you.

What happened was that a couple of days later some self-righteous Christian woman wrote a furious letter to the editor of the main local newspaper, The Shillong Times, condemning the "Satanic" music which had disturbed her as she was driving past the venue. Apparently listening to death metal makes people worship the devil. (No. I am not making this up.)

Some guy responded the next day very reasonably pointing out that she could've simply rolled up her car window and that far from worshipping Satan, all he and his friends had wanted after the concert was spicy snacks. He also threw in a few comments about how the media had ignored the concert, which for once had featured a group on the "top of their act",  rather than the "eighties dinosaurs" (a reference to the great rock group Scorpions) who had sung here in the past.

Pictured: not dinosaurs.

The next day the woman responded with even more hilarious outrage, saying that she didn't need 'some kid' giving her advice and continuing ad nauseam on the evils of death metal. As for the media, why would they ever cover something as evil as death metal, you know.

Some other woman horned in a couple of days later claiming that rock stars sold their souls to the devil for success and that this was the reason Michael Jackson died (how she dragged Michael Jackson into the debate only she knew). 

Then yet another guy supported the first man and mentioned the Beatles, his rationale being that just because the name of the genre is death metal doesn't mean it has anything more to do with death than the Beatles have to do with insects. 

And then yet a third guy blew his top at the second for besmirching the holy name of the Beatles by mentioning them in the same breath as death metal.

I would've done my bit to stoke the debate (I was in the mood for a bit of trolling) but I've long since been unofficially banned from this paper's response pages. I wish to point out that this is the same newspaper which does not publish letters criticising its views of national politics or international news, such as its slant on neoliberal economics or the propaganda on Ukraine.

I wish Dying Fetus (sic) could be informed of this letter exchange. They could make a song out of it.

Maybe the lyrics would be their most profound number yet. I’d even volunteer to write it for them.

And then maybe I could find out for myself what a dying foetus sounds like.