Font ResizeWe're talking the Meow Mix jingle.
Buried in the recent news stories about interrogators using music to torture the suspected bad guys we've rounded up in the prison at Guantanamo Bay was this little fact -- one of the songs used was the jingle for Meow Mix.
And now that I've mentioned it here, that jingle will be stuck in your head all day long until it drives you mad with irrational rage toward cats to the point where you go home and torture Fluffy by playing Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" at ear-bleeding volumes.
See, now you have Nugent stuck in your head, which is a bad thing because he's in there trying to kill things.
But I digress.
Use of the Meow Mix jingle is indeed cruel and unusual. When that annoying piece of commercial detritus was foisted upon the nation, it was intended to sell cat food, not torture. That was simply an unintended side-effect, sort of like nausea, vomiting or a four-hour erection.
And certainly none of the music used by interrogators at the prison had been written or performed with the idea that it would one day be used to coerce a shepherd from the hills of Afghanistan to confess to acts of terrorism up to and including responsibility for those stickers
Of course, I could be wrong. What else could the producers of the Meow Mix theme have been thinking other than torture? Just as, what could have the producers of the theme from "Barney," or some of the music from "Sesame Street," been thinking other than torturing people whose brains had developed to the point where they no longer poop in their pants?
And it explains some of the other music. Among the music used to torture people was the catalog of Britney Spears. Sounds about right. And certainly they had to throw in some Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, music so sickly sweet that it immediately sends listeners into diabetic shock.
Stories about the use of music in torture also noted that interrogators used Metallica, Eminem and the Bee Gees. Of those, the Bee Gees seems most appropriate if the goal is to turn someone's brain into a mass of useless mush, as evidenced by the entire decade of the '70s. (As a side note, the Bee Gees appear in Robert Olen Butler's new novel, "Hell," as minions of Satan. Also, in the book, a free concert by "the All Star Polka Choir made up of Presley and Hendrix, Joplin and Marley and Jagger, Cobain and Shakur all dressed in lederhosen and Alpine hats" drives crowds to madness and rage.)
Still, a bunch of artists have complained about the use of music as a tool of torture and have joined together to gain the release of documents about why music was used and how it was used and what music was used.
Among them is Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
You know, if you want people not to use your music to torture people, don't make music that tortures people.
That said, I'm guessing what has the artists most upset is that the CIA or whoever didn't pay royalties to use the music, based on just how effective the use of the said music was in obtaining confessions from detainees, some of whom may be guilty of such crimes against man and nature as tearing the tags off mattresses.
Some of the music was just puzzling. I mean, among artists whose tunes were used to inflict pain and suffering was Bruce Springsteen. Bruce? Really?
If you really wanted to hurt these people, wouldn't you opt for Billy Joel or maybe Kanye West or any of the contestants from "American Idol"?
If you really wanted to break detainees' wills, why not just blast them with Toby Keith until their IQs drop to the point where their brains can barely support basic life functions? Repeated exposure to Keith's oeuvre has been known to induce in previously sentient beings a reptilian state that results in installing plastic testicles on their pickup trucks. It is powerful stuff.
Same for Lee Greenwood.
Declassified documents have said that interrogators used music to "create futility" in uncooperative witnesses.
Oh my God! They've used Clay Aiken against these poor slobs!
Forget waterboarding.
Go Aiken on these suckers.
Or better yet, break out the William Shatner.
If you've ever heard Kirk sing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," you know what torture is.
Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.inyork.com/ydr -- click on the opinion section -- or visit his blog at www.mikeargento.com.
