Music has been an integral part of human civilization since ages. It has been sung as hosannas, as ballads, as lullabies for babies and in many other forms. Over time the lyrics, genre and tune has changed and what was once a balm for the human mind took on many different hues.
Effect of music on the human mind:
It is said that people who listen to music show visible improvement in their emotional and psychological well being. It has great transformative power which reduces stress related hormones. Music as a balm is an accepted norm yet all postulates have a flip side.
The American Professor Isaac Asimov says that’ the 3 pound human brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe’. Obviously music cannot have the same effect on all human beings. Vagaries are bound to exist and researchers started exploring the negative effects of music on mental health. Many instances of music tragedies have come up globally.
Study conducted in Children’s hospital, New Orleans found that music is a powerful instrument to articulate the inner self. It has a profound effect on adolescents who get hooked to the lyrics and keep listening to it repeatedly. This practice of rumination leads to long term depression and anxiety with serious consequences for themselves and others.
Music that caused real deaths:
For a long time, some very popular songs have been linked to real deaths and been listed among the infamous deadly songs. Here is a pick of 10 fatal songs chronicled in the history of music tragedies
1. Gloomy Sunday:
In the 1930s this song, composed by a Hungarian pianist Rezso Seress became an overnight hit. Later it was sung by Billie Holiday and became popular as an English song too. Sadly this deadly song led to more than a hundred suicides and was later banned on radio. The composer himself committed suicide and so did his girl friend who had jilted him. It was a song written in despair and the melancholy caught up in the listeners’ mood. A hugely popular number went down as a dangerous song in musical history.
2. Cross road blues:
Among all the listed fatal songs this particular song has the most unusual connection with tragedy. It is like a folklore in which the deadly song has been given occult overtones.Story goes that the singer Robert Johnson in 1936 made a deal with the devil himself at a crossroad in Mississippi where he sold his soul in exchange for stupendous musical genius. His total recording career was seven months, even then he is hailed as the ‘master of blues’. This success which he achieved in a short span of time gave rise to such speculations. Johnson died young at the age of 27 years in 1938. Strangely his death certificate does not mention the cause of his death. Speculations range from death by congenital syphilis to poisoning by a jealous husband. The fatal song did not inflict pain and suffering on others but took away the life of this musical genius at a tender age. Hence this ditty too is jinxed becoming a real life deadly song in the history of music tragedies.
3. Helter Skelter:
This song was composed by the Beatles in 1968 about an amusement park ride of the same name. Charles Manson, an ardent Beatles fan, was under the delusion that the song was a prophecy of an apocalyptic war. He decided to take it forward by committing high profile murders to start a war. On the 9th of August 1969 he and his friends reached Hollywood hills and shot down seven people in a gruesome manner. They were later tried in court and convicted but this senseless killing of innocents sent chills down the spine. Such fatal effects of music on people who are mentally unstable can be devastating.
4. Night Prowler:
It is a hard rock song by Bon Scott from the AC/DC band album ‘highway to hell’. Its slow rhythm and ominous lyrics set the tone for sinister events in the mid 1980s by Richard Ramirez. He was framed for 15 brutal murders in Los Angeles in the summer of 1985. His modus operandi was getting in through windows at night to commit crime. At the time he was caught he was wearing an AC/DC shirt and confessed to being their fan. Nicknamed ‘night stalker’ he brought ill fame to the band. Parents started campaigning against the song and it remained a controversial point for quite some time. The band claimed that though Ramirez had given an ominous projection to the song, it was the story of a love struck boy trying to meet his girlfriend at night. A simple storyline was dubbed as an infamous deadly song.
5. Suicide solution:
When Ozzy Osbourne mouthed the lyrics’ suicide is the only way out’ in this fatal song little must he have imagined that teenagers would be driven to commit suicide. John Daniel Mc Collum was so besotted by this song that he would keep listening to it over and over again. This rumination instigated him to finally shoot himself on the 26th of October 1984. His parents took the artist to court in 1986 but the case was dismissed in favor of the singer. Later another teenager committed suicide in 1988 under the influence of this song but again the case was dismissed. Another glaring example of a dangerous song in history.
6. Better by you better than me:
This is a 1969 song by English Rock Band Spooky Tooth. It became a subject of controversy when the song was rendered by Judas Priest in 1985. Two teenagers drugged and shot themselves in Nevada and the lyrics ‘Let’s be dead ‘and to ‘do it’ was blamed. The judge conceded that the fatal song contained subliminal messages which could provoke but the song could not be blamed entirely. After many trials the case was dismissed.
7. Exit U2:
The album Joshua Tree has this song exit which was again one infamous deadly song. This composition by Rock band U2 was inspired by the Pulitzer prize winning novel ‘The executioner’s song’ written in1980 by Norman Mailer portraying the mind of a serial killer Gary Gilmore. This fatal song influenced Robert John Bardo of Arizona to the extent that he shot point blank at actress Rebecca Schaeffer. In the court he alluded to the words ‘pistol weighing heavy ‘ from this song which had prompted him to commit this crime. A trial ensued but again the band was acquitted for this real life deadly song.
8. Runaway train:
American alternative rock band Soul Asylum is the originator of this infamous deadly song which was released in June 1993. Having won the Grammy award in 1994, this song became a hot favorite among the youth. Dave Pirner, the lead singer, made some music videos conceding that the lyrics described his experience of depression. Sadly many of the artists who featured in the video went missing. More versions of this video were made and in both the American and Australian versions the featured artists were found missing. To this date many of them have not been located and some were later found deceased in mysterious circumstances. Thus this song also made it to the list of music that caused real deaths.
9. Take me home country roads:
In March 2008, in Thailand, eight people were shot after repeated renditions of John Denver’s song ‘ Take me home country roads’. Weenus Chumkamnerd, aged 52 , a Thai rubber tapper shot down 8 of his neighbors when they sang this song. It was a karaoke party where this song was hugely popular. He said it was more to control the noise pollution and the continuous repetitions in high off key notes. The song was not largely discredited but the enormity of crime pushed it to the list of dangerous songs in history.
10. My Way:
This song by Frank Sinatra sparked a spate of killings in the Philippines. The Filipinos enjoy a karaoke culture and this song was a particular favorite in the bars. Due to its lethal associations the song was named ‘My way killings’ in the Philippines. It evoked so much passion that a bouncer used his service weapon at a bar in Rizal to kill the singer for going off key. More than a dozen killings have been attributed to this fatal song. Music analysts say that the triumphalist theme of the song evokes a false sense of pride and arrogance in the singer. This attitudinal change of singer probably provokes the listener to kill them. Years later a Japanese rock band Kishiden released a slightly different version of ‘ My way’ on their tenth anniversary along with a music video. In the video the lead singer Ayonocozey gets shot numerous times while singing this song. After the song was concluded the singer was actually shot once in the back and he succumbed to his injury. A violence provoking deadly song which caused many real life deaths.
Conclusion:
There is a long list of songs linked to deaths and the onus of composers to take care of this aspect cannot be overlooked. Such is the power of music.
