On torture, terrorism - and all that jazz

When I imagine hell, I picture being locked up with Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass – without ear plugs. There could be no more dire punishment for a life of full-on sin.

You don't readily forget or forgive National Radio for what it inflicted on you when your parents had control of the dial, and Herb was a stalwart. Some very dusty person in horn-rimmed glasses, hiding behind old copies of The Listener, poked him into playing slots much too often, possibly in a vague belief that he was hip. Maybe Herb had been hip once, with fans somewhere in deepest Southland, but, by the time my ears were tortured by him, hip was something nobody wanted to be hip any more. Nor will they ever again – hence, please God, the merciful relief of never having to hear Mr Acker Bilk play "Stranger on the Shore" on his trusty clarinet.

Hell is other people's music. It is especially so in summer, when everyone's doors are wide open, and their stereos are playing. It's a well-known fact that nobody plays Beethoven at this volume and inflicts it on their neighbours; that would be almost bearable. It has to be something you never want to hear, such as drum practice, The White Stripes or Metallica.

I loathe heavy metal, but not as much as I loathe the idiotic Swingle Singers, another fave of National Radio in the past. What those phony music intellectuals did to Bach was cruel and unnatural, and must have driven many an otherwise gentle soul to axe murder.

Should anyone ever wish to drive me mad by tying me to a chair and making me listen to music I detest, they could do no better than start with Dave Dobbyn singing "Loyal". I'll grind my molars down. Follow that with Peter, Paul and Mary singing "Stewball was a Racehorse" and I will gibber; almost any so-called novelty song will do that. Follow through with the appalling thing from the Irish Rovers about the unicorn, the green alligators and long-necked geese, and for good measure, the mind-numbing Leonard Cohen number about Suzanne taking you down to a place by the river. I will be willing to jump into that river by then, with a desperate urge to drown. Human beings can take only so much.

I've been thinking of this because of the coalition of musicians, including Pearl Jam and REM, who are currently demanding to know if their music was used to torture detainees at Guatanamo Bay. Unsurprisingly, to people who've had neighbours like I've sometimes had, incessant very loud music is banned by the UN Convention Against Torture.

There is a British human rights group campaigning against music torture and, according to their sympathisers, death metal band Deicide's "F Your God" and "I Love You" by Barney the Dinosaur were enlisted to crack the terrorist suspects. Former detainees say this tactic was one of the worst and most painful used against them and I think any mother of a young child in living memory would sympathise with that. That purple dinosaur has had it coming for years.

Musicians can be ultra-sensitive about these things. Tom Morello, guitarist with Rage Against the Machine, is outraged that their number, "Killing In the Name of" was also used at Guantanamo. "The fact that music I helped create was used as a tactic against humanity sickens me," he has declared.

Naturally Metallica featured in the torture sessions; "Enter Sandman" has been cited; while Queen's "We Are the Champions" was apparently a fave with US guards at Camp Cropper in Iraq. Come to think of it, that belongs on my drive-yourself-mad list as well.

What baffles me is why these musicians want to know their work has been used in this way. You'd think they'd slink away into a corner and sob about it till their mascara ran – but maybe it's the loss of royalties that's got them riled.

I pity these poor old terrorists for what they've been through if the report is true. What were the Yanks thinking? If they were trying to prove the superiority of western music and culture they could surely have tried harder, and what could be the point of making those possible terrorists hate them even more?

I would have advised more friendly music, played at a gentle volume, for its power of subtle seduction. Something like Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" could win them over, but only played once a week with – on humanitarian grounds – ear plugs provided.

rosemary.mcleod@star-times.co.nz