The psychopathic rhythms of everyday American life

Reporting on Jared Loughner’s music choice, The Washington Post’s J. Freedom du Lac says a lone video is listed as a “favorite” of the shooter, Drowning Pool’s “Bodies.” “ ‘Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor,’ the singer barks in a refrain that carries an eerie echo in the context of the shooting rampage Saturday in Tucson,” he writes. David Horowitz, executive director of the First Amendment group Media Coalition, told the reporter, "it seems like a real stretch" to suggest that "Bodies" had anything to do with the shooting.

But do I have to listen to it in grocery stores?

When you go to malls or other public places you should not have to listen to the bodies hitting the floor, or the prison lyrics of Charles Manson or whatever whack-job narcotic rap/rape gangsta rant is piped through from the edge of despair and occasionally over it. It is packaging and wallpaper; a pathology of everyday American life. It is a noxious invasion and it is everywhere.

“ ‘Bodies’ was written about the brotherhood of the mosh pit and the respect people have for each other in the pit. If you push others down, you have to pick them back up. It was never about violence. It's about a certain amount of respect and a code,” claims Drowning Pool.

And the mosh pit, gathering hole of the marginally insane and some of those full tilt, “driven by hate, consumed by fear,” is where it belongs. In a free republic music as poisonous as this (YouTube their video) should never be banned. But its currency is a barometer of our psychological and moral health. When it becomes a dominating theme, as it is today, we are collectively screwed.

Visit Mr. Quigley's website at http://quigleyblog.blogspot.com.