Metallica in Helmand

In 2008 I worked at the RAND Corporation in Washington, DC. One of my colleagues there, Samir Puri, used to write brilliant texts while listening to the likes of Iron Maiden and Sepultura on his iPod. Perhaps not surprising, you’ll say. Megadeth, after all, derived their name from a misspelling of a term coined by RAND strategist Herman Kahn.

Now Samir, who also holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College, offers some more sophisticated background in a new book chapter, Machine Guns and Machine Gun Drums (.pdf). It’s frankly one of most fascinating texts I read on the relationship of art and violence. An absolute must-read.

Most remarkable are the stories of how soldiers and victims of war use heavy metal to deal with the emotional intensity of their experiences. But the spectrum of how metal and battle go together is much broader than that. It reaches from patriotic veneration of military history to outright criticism of war. Samir distinguishes three main genres, the storytellers approach; emphasizing the visceral horror of violence; and revulsion at the suffering inherent in war. Just two examples, one for the horror and one on storytelling.

Samir quotes the disturbing lyrics from a Swedish death metal band with the subtle name Dismember:

Body split in two, trembling hands / Touch what is left of me / Try to force back, guts where they belong /… To end it all is the only option / I reach for my weapon so close but so far / I lift up my intestines, examine them closely / What has come of me, where is the rest of me / … Forgotten soldier left to rot / Among other corpses / A nameless causality / In mankind’s bloody history

So I guess he’s right when pointing out that ”there is — quite simply — no other genre” that would produce such “astonishingly graphic lyrics.” There is something to be said in favor of this kind of artistic treatment of, well, the cognitive challenge of war. I’m sure if Peter Paret would listen to death metal, he’d have interesting things to say about that, too.

Which brings us to military history. Iron Maiden, Samir explains, is the group of choice here:

Whether it is the march of Alexander’s armies, the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, the mud and blood of Third Battle of Ypres, or the clash between RAF and Luftwaffe over southern England’s skies, Maiden are sure to have documented the tale.

And who knew that Iced Earth, an American group, in their album The Glorious Burden covers various theaters of battle with a distinctly patriotic overtone, “including a 33 minute musical retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg”? Metal, Samir writes, can provoke and reflect an interest in history in its audience.

So perhaps that’s why you’re reading this right now?

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden, Metallica, War