In 1989, US Psy Ops troops blared odd songs like “Shut Uppa You Face” and “These Boots Are Made For Walking” “Voodoo Child” and “I Fought The Law” at Manuel Noriega’s compound as an effort to induce surrender. The same kind of “acoustic bombardment” occurred at Waco and is reportedly used during POW interrogations too. According to this BBC News article, tunes from Sesame Street, Barney, and Metallica were popular Psy Ops picks in Iraq. Here’s a paper on the subject by New York University music professor Suzanne Cusick that was published last year in Revista Transcultural de Música. Last week, the Society for Ethnomusicology published a position statement “against the use of music as torture.” From their document:
The U.S. government and its military and diplomatic agencies has used music as an instrument of abuse since 2001, particularly through the implementation of programs of torture in both covert and overt detention centers as part of the war on terror.
The Society for Ethnomusicology
* calls for full disclosure of U.S. government-sanctioned and funded programs that design the means of delivering music as torture;
* condemns the use of music as an instrument of torture; and
* demands that the United States government and its agencies cease using music as an instrument of physical and psychological torture.
Previously on BB:
• Eminem and Dr. Dre used for torture? Link
• The Men Who Stare At Goats Link
UPDATE: Joe Dolce, who wrote the excellent song Shaddap You Face, emailed me and said he had never heard that his song had been used in the Noriega situation. I swear I remember reading or seeing that in news reports at the time, but I did a bit of Nexis digging and couldn’t find mention of it. However, according to a Washington Times article from December 29, 1989, the US Army Special Operations Forces’ Panama playlist did include:
‘Beat it’ by Michael Jackson
‘You’re No Good’ by Linda Rondstadt
‘Nowhere to Run’ by The Marvelettes
‘Voodoo Child’ by Jimi Hendrix
‘I Fought the Law’ by Bobby Fuller Four
And a post at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog lists Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog,” Ann Peebles’s “Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down,” “Judgement Day” by The Pretty Things, and “Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” as part of the mix.