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Killing Me Softly with His Song: An Initial Investigation into the Use of Popular Music as a Toolof Oppression

Author(s): Martin Cloonan and Bruce JohnsonSource: Popular Music, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 27-39Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853585Accessed: 21-12-2015 17:00 UTC

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2/14

Popular Music

(2002)

Volume 21/1.

Copyright ) 2002

Cambridge

University

Press,pp. 27-39.

DOI:10.1017/SO261143002002027

rinted n

the United

Kingdom

i l l i n g

m

s o f t l y

w i t h

h i s s o n g

n

i n i t i a l

investig tion

i n t o t h

u s

o f

popul r

m u s i c

s

t o o l

o f

oppression

MARTIN

CLOONAN

and

BRUCE

JOHNSON

Abstract

Popular

music

studies generally

celebrate he

power of music

to

empowerthe

constructionof

individ-

ual and

social identities,

a site of

positive

self-realisation.

But such an

approach

risks

overlookinga

significant

element

in the

musical transaction.

How, for

example,

did the

inhabitants of lericho

feel?

Or

President

Noriega when

musically

besieged by US

troops in

Panama City?

Or street kids

in

Wollongong,New

South Wales,

driven

out of

shopping malls by the

strategic

broadcastingof Frank

Sinatra

recordings?Every

time we

applaud the

deploymentof music

as a

way of

articulating physical,

cognitive and

cultural territory,

we are also

applauding the potential

or actual

displacementor even

destruction of

other

identities. On

occasions that

displacementmay well

be conducted as

an act of

extreme violence:

music as pain.

This negative

side of

the

territorialismof music,

however,

receives

little

attention in popular

music

studies, even

though it is

potentially the

dark

side of any

musical

transaction.In

attemptingto

redress the

balance,this

article is a

'trailer' or

a joint

investigation into

the

use of popular

music as a

weapon. It

represents

our initial

attempts to think

throughsome of

the

issues

surrounding

popular

music and its use

as a tool of

repressionand the

deliberate

nflicting of

pain.

Introduction

The

origins of

this

research lie in a

paper

given by

BruceJohnson

at the

IASPM

1999

conference in Sydney

in which

he outlined

the

origins of

Westernmusic

in

Australia.

During the

introduction o

the talk,

Bruce

describedsome

of the

violence

upon

which

the prison

colony in

Australia

was

established. In

particular,he

high-

lighted

the

routine

floggings which

were meted out

for

petty offences

and the

mech-

anical,

dispassionateway

in which

such

floggings and

the suffering

of the

victims

were

logged.

Of some

significance was

the fact

that one

of the

offences for

which

brutal

punishmentwould

be inflicted

was the

singing of

songs,

particularlyby

Irish

nationalistswho had

been

sent to the

colony for

rebelling

against

Britishrule.

Such darkepisodes have theirparallels n much morerecenttimes.Theedited

collection

by

Svanibor

Pettan (1998),

Music,

Politicsand War

n

Croatia,

ontains

many

referencesto the

ways in which

popularmusic

was used to

accompanyand

inflict

pain in

the wars in

the former

Yugoslavia.We

have not, as

yet, found

any

recorded

instances of

music

being used to

accompany

the torture

of

convicts in

Australia,but

we are

interested

in the ways

in which

popular

music might

be used

27

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3/14

28 Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson

both as a source of pain and to accompany

the inflictingof pain. To sum

up, we

have become intrigued

by a darker

side of the use of popular music.

As we exploredthe primaryand

secondary iterature,we were generally

con-

firmed n a long-standing mpressionregardinga strongprevailingcurrent n popu-

lar music studies.

In their efforts

to establish popular music as a credible

arena

of academic study

(something which

we wholeheartedlysupport), popular

music

academics have

generally tended to underplay the

negative impact of

popular

music. Some double

standards have

been deployed as a consequence,as an

eager-

ness to celebrateany apparentcomplicity

of popular music

in producing successful

revolutions againstrepressive political

and culturalregimeshas been accompanied

by scornful denials of any causal links

which suggest that

pop might produce acts

of criminalityand terror.There has

been a tendency to

representpopularmusic as

a redemptive and emancipatory orce

which opposes conservative and historically

entrenchedmusic discourses, but to deny or ignore its darkerside.

Whatever

else makes up the tapestry of popular

music studies, one

thread

seems virtually

unbroken throughout

its weave: that popular music is universally

a 'good thing'.

The attempt by popular music academics

to give intellectual

legi-

timation to theirsubjecthas had a tendency

to drift into

blanket moral legitimation.

In the context of the whole body of

popular music studies, few have seemed

pre-

pared to do the

dirty on pop. This

often represents the outer limits to

critical

engagement with

larger cultural politics, and in many

ways produces homologies

with the dubious

discursive economies against which

the critical disciplines

of

popular music studies were originally

mobilised. Among other conundrums,

this

prompts the question put by KeithNegus (1996, p. 33):Will such studies become

the site of a vacuous

celebrationof consumerism?

Thus the

origins of the currentarticle ay in these

two strands of thinking:on

the one hand, a

recognitionthat music has accompanied,

and even been the

instru-

ment of, appalling acts of inhumanity

and repression;

on the other, a feeling that

this obvious and

unequivocal truth is largely ignored

as being inconvenient to a

scholarly community

often more concernedwith an almost

complacentcelebration

of its topic. And as foreshadowed above,

this is not a small

matter- every triumph

achieved by music is at someone's

expense. Indeed, frequentlythe purpose

of the

triumph is the

humiliation and even brutalisationof the

defeated.

The rest of the paper sets out some initial thoughts on the use of music as a

tool of oppression.We begin with some

remarksabout the

use of sound, thensketch

a preliminarytaxonomy of music

functioning in various

ways and to different

degrees as a form of oppression.

That oppression may

fall anywhere on a con-

tinuum between discomfort which

is incidental to the

intended function of the

music, to the deliberatedeployment

of music as an instrumentof pain. Within

that

scheme, musicmay simply accompany

he discomfort/painor be the primary

cause

of it, either physicallyor psychologically.

We then proceedto some of the

concep-

tual approaches

which might help to develop our thinking.

We conclude with

furtherexampleswhich serve to highlight

the complexitiesof the issues with

which

we wish to engage.

The use of sound

Preparing o cross

the Rhone as he

began his invasion of Italy in 218 BC, Hannibal's

army was confronted

by Gallic warriors

who 'came surgingto the river bank,

how-



4/14

Killingme softlywith his song

29

ling and singing as their custom

was, shaking their shields above

their heads and

brandishingtheir spears' (Livy

1965, p. 67). Hannibaleasily defeated

these singing

warriors, but he was less successful

with the Romans sixteen

years later at the

battle of Zamathat ended his campaign.Accordingto Livy, musicwas a significant

presence in this defeat:

There were...

factors which seem trivial to recall,

but proved of great importanceat the

time of action. The Roman war-cry

was louder and more terrifyingbecause

it was in unison,

whereas the cries

from the Carthaginian ide were

discordant,coming

as they did from a

mixed assortment

of peoples with a variety of mother

tongues. (ibid., p. 661-2)

Thus the

use of music, thatis the use of particular

orms of sound, has histori-

cally formed

part of the act of war. And of course,

the object of

war is to inflict the

utmost pain

upon the enemy.

Thus the association of (popular)

music with the

inflicting of pain has a long historical

ineage.One of the best-known

stories of the

Old Testament

s how foshua

Fit The Battleof Jericho',with the

sounding of trum-

pets, 'and the

walls came tumbling down'. In

addition, we can

see that sound has

been used in related ways in

more peaceable times.

Sound and

territory

Sound is an

ancient markerof physical and psychic

territorial dentity.

As a familiar

example, a Cockney

is traditionally omeone born

within the sound

of Bow Bells.In

an ocularcentric

ociety, our

willed imaginariesare primarilyvisual

(our 'visions',

'perspectives','points of view'), yet it is sound which is actually and historically

the more flexiblemode of negotiation.

With minorvariations,

our visible presence

is fixed and

finite. The horizons of sound are,

of course, much

more flexible. That

flexibility was

illustrated even as this section

of the paper was written. It was

in

the Finnish

city of Joensuu on MidsummerEve,

and a mile or two

away, beside the

lake, therewas a rock concert

which could not

be seen, but it could be heard. As

it

was heard it was possible to

discern each band defining its own

acoustic horizons

and aural textures in different

ways. This was most obvious

simply in terms

of

volume, as successive groups

receded and advancedin the soundscape.

Unlike

our visible presence,we can constantly

and instantlymodify the radius

and characterof our acoustic presence so that it is a powerful tool for political

negotiation,

a way of taking control in defiance

of physical space.

From the trum-

pets of Joshua's

army at Jerichoto the loudspeakers

of US Marines

blasting AC/

DC at the besieged

General Noriega (see below),

sound has been used to flood

spaces with

power, to oppressand conquer:both

Hitler and F.R.Leavis understood

the relationship

between moderndemagoguery

and the microphone.

One of

the defining featuresof modernity

is the rising level of noise, and

in

particular ts use as a way of

situating ourselves in society. It can

be a background

in which we

may conceal ourselves. In October

1999 it was reported

that the BBC

was about to

install a noise machinein its finance

department o circulatea 'muzak'

of chatter, laughter

and general office noise,

because workers feel exposed and

oppressed by

the ambient silence (SydneyMorning

Herald,15 October 1999). More

often, it is sound

itself that is used to oppress, to

take up public spaceat the expense

of others.l Sound thus becomes

an invasion of

personal space. In response to this,

there have been moves to

create mobile-phone-freezones on

public transport

(Dasey 2000).

In Britain, ong-distanceVirgin trains

now incorporate

a 'QuietCoach'



5/14

30

Martin

Cloonan

ndBruce ohnson

within

which

mobile phones

are banned

and

personal stereos

discouraged.

From

mobilephones

to stereos

lies the continuum

oiningsound

with music,

and

to travel

along

that spectrum

s

to tracesound

on its way

to being

music.

Sound

becoming

music

Apart

from speech

itself,

music

is the most

sophisticated

form

of acculturated

sound.

Music is to sound

what

place is

to space.

Most human

sounds made

for

their

own

sake are on

the way to

being music

and, as

such, are potential

means

of

territorial

oppression.

In many

regions

in the

era prior to

electricalamplification,

recording,

and industrial-strength

i-fi systems,

one

of the most pervasive

ways

of

projecting

power through

a form

of music

was public

bells: reportedly

banned

in

Turkey

because

of their

abilityto

rouse the populace,

and regarded

by the Chinese

as the highest of all forms of torment(Corbin1999,pp. 195,305).Parishbells were

recognised

as

important

weapons

in everyday

confrontations

hat

defined larger

historical

processes

in the rise

of

modernity(See

Corbin1999,

passim).

In

nineteenth-century

France,campanarian

practices

defined

points

of conflict

between

contending

classes:the

common

versus the

elite, secular

arm

versus the

clergy,

the urban

versus the

rural,and textual

versus auditory

cultures.

While these

bells

were

oftenaccompaniments

o

violence

andbloodshed,

they

might also simply

be acoustic

confrontations

over

controlover

the soundscape

either

for its

own sake,

or

where different

regimes

of time and

space contended

for

ascendancy.

Whatever

the

case, the taking

control

of the

bells, at what

time, and in

what manner,

became

such powerful forms of public intimidation,humiliationand defiance,that many

communities

found

theirbells

stolen,buried,

destroyed,

or their

bell towers

locked.

Let

us turn,however,

to sounds

which may

be

regarded ess

ambiguously

as music.

Music

and oppression

The

earlierquotation

from Livy reminds

us that

music has

always

been deployed

to

inflame and

intimidate.

Greek

galley oarsmen

around

400 BC

had a range

of

chants, ncluding

one for battle

(Proctor

1992,p.

6). WhenRichard

arrived

n Sicily

to join the crusades,his 'resoundingtrumpetsand loud hornsstruckfearand dread

into

the souls

of the citizens'

(ibid.,

p. 9). Ships

of the Spanish

Armada

in

1588

carriedtrumpeters,

drummers

and fife

players whose

battle

orders were

to play

incessantly

to

enliven their

own

men and frighten

the enemy

(ibid.,p. 14).

Music

in

itself

could become

the site

of contestation,

as

in the battle

between seventeenth-

century

trade rivals,

the Dutchnavy

and

the Portuguese-held

ortress

at

Macao:

The ships

drew off at sunset,

but celebrated

he expected

victory

by blowing trumpets

and

beating

drums

all night. Not

to be outdone

by this

bravado,Lopo

Sarmento

de Carvalho

ordered

similar

martialrejoicings

o be

made on the

city's bulwarks.

(ibid., . 33)

These

are

fairly schematic

models:

nation

versus nation,

tribe versus

tribe,

with

musical

meaningsunambiguous

andagreed.

Meanings,

and especially

musical

ones, however,

are often constructed

n

conflicting

ways.

When Christopher

Col-

umbus

attempted

to communicate

amicably

with the natives

of Trinidad,

he

ordered

his ship's

musicians

to play. The

natives,

however,

interpreted

this

as a

prelude

to battle,

and

repliedwith

volleys of

arrows(ibid.,

p. 55).

One man's

meat

continues

to be

anotherman's

poison.

In April

2000 it was

reported

that the Israel



6/14

Killing

me softly

withhis song

31

Symphony

Orchestra

s still

encountering

resistance

o its

wish to perform

Wagner:

'The

time

is ripe to distinguish

between

art

and ideology',

said the orchestra's

director

Mendi

Rotan.

Its secretary-general,

Avi Shoshani,

however,

insists

that 50

years on this

will still

cause 'agony,

sorrow

and pain for

holocaust

survivors'.

(Sydney

MorningHerald,

10

April

2000)

For

at leastone

holocaust

survivor,

the distinction

between

'art'

and 'ideology'

was not

tenable,and

he

fought sonic

pain with

sonic sabotage.

During what

was

reportedly

'the first

performance

n Israel

of a

work by Richard

Wagner'

(by the

Rishon

Letzion

Symphony

Orchestra),

an

eighty-year-old

Polish

survivor

of the

death

camps

in the

audience

persistently

swung

a large plastic

rattle

around

his

head

until ejected

by an usher

(Katzenell

2000).

These examples

are all

based on

live

music. In

the

era of the

modern mass

media, technology

has amplified

the

projection

of private

musical

tastesinto

the public

sphere,

thus collapsing

a distinc-

tion that could be much more effectivelymaintainedin a pre-urban,pre-industrial

era.

Part of the

clamour

of modernity

is a

public sonic

brawling,

as urban

space

becomes

a site

of acoustic

conflict.

Thisis underpinned

by the politics

of

modernity:

increasingly

portable

noise in increasingly

densely

packed spaces.

British

MP Robert

Key wishes

to ban the

broadcasting

of recorded

music

in

public

places

(http://www.robertkey.com/pr/prO01.htm#),

and he

is supported

by

a

2,500 member

lobby group

called

Pipedown

(of whom

more below).

Pipedown

citefigures

which

suggest

that thirty-four

per

centof a

surveygroup

activelydislike

muzak,

whereas thirty

per cent

like

it, and that

youth are less

likely

to object

to it

than

older people

(Herbert2000).

It may

be that

this is to

do with generationally

distinct thresholdsof acoustictolerance.In a conversationwith one of the authors

(8 May

2000), the

Director

of the

Australian

Acoustic

Laboratories

reported

a

measurable

decline

in hearing

acuity among

younger

Australians.

However,

differing

responses

to muzak

may also

depend on

exactly

what the

muzak

is. This

is one of

the several

lines of enquiry

suggested by

the foregoing,

raising

then the question

of how

to

study in more

detail the

negative functions

of

music.

This obviously

overlaps

with a range

of

issues, including

ethics,

aesthetics

and

physiology,

and

we return

to this issue

later.However,

we now wish

to sketch

an initial

model.

Music

and the

inflicting

of pain:

a preliminary

axonomy

A broad

division can

be

seen to exist

between pain

which is

incidentally

caused

by

music (such

as loud

music played

in

an adjacent

room or building)

and

occasions

on which

pain is integral

to the playing

of music.

Note, however,

that the divide

caneasily

be breached,

as

on occasions

when car

stereosare

deliberately

played

too

loudly.

But let

us put more

flesh on

the bones

of these

ideas.

Pain

as incidental

Examples of the inflicting of pain as incidental to the purpose of music might

include

a loud CD

playerin an

adjacent

lat or the

irritating

sound of a

loud

walk-

man on

public

transport.

At the extremes,

this could

involve

being

exposed to

any

music which

the listener

finds

annoying

or even torturous.

For

example,

back in

the

1860s, 'torturous'

was exactly

the phrase

used

by a British

criticto describe

the

music produced

by a touring

Japanese

music

group (Mihara

1998,

p. 134).



7/14


In the majorityof cases in this category, the primary purpose of the music is

not to inflict pain, but pain is neverthelessbeing felt. Note, however, the potential

at least to move from this state towards one where pain becomes integral to the

process - so that it is possible to move from a position where the music is inciden-

tally annoying neighbours to one where the whole purpose of the music is to annoy

neighbours. Thus, when residents of Trinidad Crescent in Poole, England, pet-

itioned their local council in 1993 in an effort to prevent their neighbour, Mary

Carruthers, rom playing Jim Reeves' records at full blast night and day, one of the

residents commented that: 'The way I saw it, they were out to annoy the whole

neighbourhood' Weale 1993).

In fact, recent years in the UK have seen various attempts to legislate against

so-called 'nuisance'neighbours and the noise which emanates from them. This has

resulted in a number of Acts which cover noise, including the 1990 Environmental

Health Act, the 1996 Noise Act and the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. Under such

Acts, local authorities can move against perpetratorsof noise, issue abatement

orders, and subsequently seize and confiscate equipment if the abatement orders

are not complied with. This will generally nvolve a court case which may also lead

to fines and even imprisonment in severe cases. However, some critics have

attacked these Acts as inadequatebecause they rely on victims gathering evidence

and reportinga numberof incidents and because anti-noisemeasures are dispersed

throughout a number of disparate Acts, ratherthan being brought together in one

piece of legislation (Symons 2000, p. 2).

Meanwhile,the question of anti-socialneighbourswas an issue in the 2001 UK

general election as the ruling LabourGovernmentwas concerned that not enough

complaints were coming via existing mechanisms aimed at countering anti-social

behaviour and was contemplating further reforms (Travis 2001). The UK govern-

ment also has a Noise Forum which meets three times a year and discusses,

amongst other things, domestic noise (Gibson 1999, p. 2). Complaints about noisy

neighbours have escalated in recent years (Victor 1994) and by 1993 were running

at over 100,000a year in the UK (Vidal 1993, p. 3). Moreover, amplified music is

heavily implicated n this and around a third of complaintsabout noise concernthe

playing of loud music (Taylor1993).

The rise of sound recordingand amplification echnologies has of course pro-

vided a major platform from which 'nuisance noise' has been projected.It is not

simply that amplification ncreased he level of noise. In addition, t enabled particu-

lar kinds of noise to be projected,and in a way that violated the sense of the accept-

able boundaries between private and public spaces. Complaints about noise are

more often based on the intrusionof the private nto the public, than about loudness

as such (mobile phones and personal sound systems are not really a phenomenon

of 'loudness').

The development of the use of the microphoneas a performanceaccessory n

the early 1930s was condemned in some quarters.However, this was not simply

(and not at all at first) because it produced loud music - it was, after all, originally

used purely to bring singers who were too soft up to a level commensuratewith

big bands in large and noisy leisure venues. Rather, it was the characterof the

singing which the microphone now enabled to be disseminated publicly: timbres

and tones that were not regardedas part of the repertoireof approved public sing-

ing, but which were associated with private and non-musicaldomains, as in 'a low

moaning sound, as of animals in pain. . . the soft singing of a mother to her child',



8/14


33

or what

came to be called

crooning,'with its nauseating

chromatic lides and

verbal

twaddle

. . . revoltingnoises', its 'distorted

and

often unlovely vowel sounds'

(cited

in Johnson

2000, pp. 95-7). The complaint

is not that the

music is too

loud, but

that vocal practices associatedwith private conduct were intrudinginto the public

sphere.2

As

many of the

foregoing examples indicate,

the termsused to describe

these

unwelcome

forms of music frequently

nvoke the idea of pain.

Describing

the loud

music which

led to her setting up

the Campaign for Peace

and Quiet (now the

Noise Network), Val

Gibson (2000,p. 1) wrote

that: 'Enduringthe thump,

thump,

thump of

the bass beat

was like torture'.She also

noted that this music

was used

deliberately

to annoy her (Noise Network

2000).In another case,

Helen Stephens

of

Stocktonon Tees was

sentenced to a week in

prison for what was described

in

court as

the 'psychological

torture'of repeatedly

playing WhitneyHouston's

'I Will

Always Love You' at maximum volume (Vidal 1993, p. 2). It is interestingto note

here that

the final straw for her neighbours

was the repeated

laying of

the song.

Thus what is a key

component of many popular

music styles, repetition

(Potter

1998, p.

38), is also the

key to the pain inflicted

in many of these cases.

Opponents

of noise are not

taking matters lying down,

as pressure groups

have been

set up to combat the

growth of nuisance caused

by noise. One is the

Noise Network which

seeks to restrain

advertisementsfor

music players which

urge buyers to 'turn

up the music'

and which boast of their

product's ability to

'annoy the neighbours'

(Noise Network 2000).

Another is the campaign

against

piped music,

Pipedown, cited earlier,

which campaignsfor

the restoration

of free-

dom of choice and 'the

real value of music', a

reflection of its

claim that all music

is devalued when it

is used for marketing. Pipedown

has a number of

celebrity

supporters

ncludingSimon Rattle,

JulianLloydWebber,Lesley

Garrettand

George

Melly. It

has claimedsuccess in removing

piped music from

Gatwick and persuad-

ing Tescos and Sainsburys

not to introduce it.

It also reports

a MORIsurvey from

January1997 in which

seventeen

per cent of people cited piped

music as the one

thing which they detested

about

modern life (Pipedown 2000).

Pipedown and the

Noise Network

are now

part of the United Kingdom

Noise Association

which met

Environment

MinisterMichael Meacher

n September2000 to

examine a

number of

issues including piped music (www.superscript.co.uk/tnn/).

Such

campaignsand noise-related

ncidentsare often portrayed

n newspaper

and other

media reportsin somewhat

jocularways, and it

has been reportedthat

complaints

about noise

in the UK have been treated

ightheartedlyby local

authorit-

ies (Symons

2000, p.

2). But the seriousness of

the issue is illustrated by

some of

the problems

which

noise has been held to contribute

o: deafness, tinitus,

strokes

migraines, peptic ulcers,

colitis and

hypertension (Vidal

1993, p. 2) as well, of

course,

as stress. In fact,

noise can be, literally,

a deadly serious problem,

in which

popular music is implicated.

For example, in the

mid-199Osdisputes about

noise

were held to cause around

five deaths a year (Gibson

1999,

p. 3; Victor 1994)and a

number of suicides (Symons 2000, p. 3). Not all of these cases involved popular

music, but

many did and they stand

in marked

contrast to the uncritically

cel-

ebratory one of many

journalisticand academic

accounts of

popular music. While

such incidents move

us towards the

darker side of popular

music usage, in most

of the cases here the

pain caused

appears, at least initially,

to have been uninten-

tional. This is not always

the case.



9/14

34

Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson

Pain as integral o the purpose

f music

Pain can be integral to

the purpose of

music in a number of ways

including

those of making

propaganda, torturing

and punishing. Pain can be

associated

with propaganda in an attempt to place one's feelings 'Right In The Fuhrer's

Face'. Thus

the object of the pain is to

boost morale, and the means by

which

morale is boosted consists

of demeaning the enemy.

Pettan (1998, p. 17) reports

that many songs written

for, and sung at, the front

during the war in

Croatia

were

deliberately designed

to provoke a response from

the enemy, which they

often did.

Another example is the way

in which neo-nazi texts and

so-called

hate music seek to

demean ethnic minorities. The pain

here is the insult to

which the

enemy is subjected.

A differentform of

propagandising

can be located in the

appropriationof the

term noise

by those involved in

marginalised music

scenes. Thus Public Enemy

urged fans to 'BringTheNoise'; there is also a heavy metal recordcompany called

Noise, a

fanzine called

Addicted To Noise, a band called

Orgy of Noise, and numer-

ous other

examples. The point here is that

an 'in your face' approach o

making or

writing

about music is used deliberately

to alienate those not sharing

the same

musical

tastes, as a means of

demarcation. The negative term 'noise'

is re-

appropriatedhere and worn

as a badge of pride.

This attitude can also

incorporate the sonic

aggression of those

whose car

stereos are

played loudly

enough to disrupt the

soundscape. A certainrebel chic

has been

attached to the

use of noise in popular music.

In the 1970s,American

guitar-heroTed Nugent emphasised his macho image with advertisements or his

live show which contained

the declaration:

If it's too loud you're too

old'. This

lineage can

be traced to more contemporary

bands such as Leftfieldwho

take great

pride in the loudness of

their gigs (Martin

2000). Thus there are contexts

within

which a certain amount of

pain is integralto the very

enjoymentof the music and

this has

been a cause of concern for the

authorities.As has been noted

elsewhere

(Cloonan

1996,p. 184),the

battle to controlpopular music

has also involved a battle

to control

noise volume at

gigs.

While

in such instances the pain is

only part of the object, there

are also

contexts in

which the primary purpose

of the music is to cause or

heighten

pain. At its most extreme, this can involve the use of music as a means of

torture.

Amnesty International and

Human Rights Watch have both

reported

incidents

from the wars in the former

Yugoslavia

where music was used to

accompany

torture (cited by

Pettan 1998,p.l8). In one

prisoner camp, a detainee

reported

that Croat prisoners were forced

to stand adopting a Serb

salute and,

in the

words of one

prisoner, 'to sing Chetnik

songs... We had to wait to

sunrise in such a position;

those who sat or collapsed

from

exhaustion were

taken out

and never came back' (cited

ibid.). In other

instances, Croat prisoners

were forced to repeatedly

sing the Yugoslav national

anthem, to the accompani-

ment of beatings. The last

verse of the anthem, which

speaks of

those who

betray the homeland being damned, had to be particularly emphasised (cited

ibid.).

In June2000 it was

reported that a young female

member of the Movement

for

DemocraticChange in

the Midlandsprovince of

Zimbabwe was visited by sup-

portersof

the ruling

ZANU-PFparty who accused her of

belonging to a partywhich

wanted to 'give Zimbabwe

back to the

whites'. As a punishment,the

following day,



10/14


35

300 people

frog-marched

her and her husband

to a tree, tied them to it

and beat

them for

five hours

with machetes, batons and

axe handles. Part of this

process

involved

the prisoners

being forcedto chant ZANU-PF

slogansand to sing

its liber-

ation songs (www.mdczimbabwe.com/free/ aiO00608txt.htm).he inflictingof pain

was also central to the

US army playing ear-busting

music to General Noriega

as

their troopsblockaded

the VaticanEmbassy n

PanamaCity

in December1989.The

music was selected to

be repetitiveand loud,

although it also included

a number

of topical

pieces such

as 'No Placeto Run' and

'You'reno Good'. In this

case there

was also

an aestheticdimension to

the attack,as Noriega was

an opera lover (Potter

1998, pp.

37-8).

While

it would

be possible to cite other examples

(as, for example,

Endnote 1

below), we also need

to think about

how to study the use

of popular music as a

tool of repression.

On the face of it,

popular music studies

as they relateto music

affect and form would seem to be a point of departure.While these obviously

suggest themselves as

constructive

lines of enquiry, we feel

that there are also

others which would

complement the

investigation.

Possibilitiesfor studying

music

as pain

1. Soundscape

tudiesand

acoustic cology

The raw

materialsof sonic oppression

are the components

of the public soundscape

and the

balances between them. In

terms of social

function, the music

throbbing

from a car radio with its windows down, has at least as much and perhapsmore

in common

with aircraft

or constructionsite noise,

as with the same music

played

in moretraditionally

authorisedcircumstances.

Such music is,

literally,trafficnoise,

part of the

soundscape of urban

modernity. It is not so much

that it is

music in

particular

that is fundamental to

its oppressiveness, as that

it indiscriminately

floods the public space.

Soundscape

studies also bring

to bear the insight that oppressive

noise

cannot

be reductively equated

simply with volume, but

is more to do with a overall

bal-

ance, an

'acoustic ecology'.

As noted above, factors

other than volume,

such as

repetitivenessand the

projectionof inappropriate

as in private)

sounds can cause

pain. In

the complaint

that some of the uses of

sound devalue music, there

is also

an aesthetic

component,

yet soundscape studies

remind us that even something

such as 'ugliness' has

to be understood as part

of a larger

ecology, and it is not

necessarily

a socially undesirable

sonic oppression:

some sounds, such

as alarms,

have to

be unpleasant.

It therefore

seems useful to

bring to bear

soundscapemethodologies,

includ-

ing phenomenological

approaches

related to ethnography,

rather than

an exclus-

ively hermeneutic

approach.3

2. Music

therapy

The English

warship 'Mary Rose'

flounderedoff Spithead in

1545, and was exca-

vated amid great publicity

in 1982.

One of the little-noted,but

fascinating,recover-

ies was

a number of musical instruments,

ncluding

a shawm. The fact that

this was

found in the surgeon's

cabin has been

interpretedas a reminder

that music therapy



11/14

36 Martin

Cloonan and Bruce Johnson

has had some

kind of formal existence

for

many centuries (Proctor

1992, p. 55).

Fromthe rather

un-clinical

statementthat music

hathcharmsto

soothe,

music ther-

apy has produced

insights which

may well

be instructive in

the study of the

relationshipbetween music and psychopathology, ncluding that

the experienceof

music can be the

very opposite of

soothing.

On the contrary,

as the Gauls facing

Hannibalknew,

it can be physiologically

arousing:

t was found

that Herbertvon

Karajanwas physiologically

morearoused (heartbeat,

espiration)

when conducting

a slow passage

of music than when

he was

landing his own

jet aircraft(Ansdell

1995,p. 5). A parallel

arousaleffect

is reported

n the extraordinary

esultsachieved

by music therapists

on comatose

patients (ibid.,

p. 136).

Some further

directions:

musicand public

order

We believe that soundscape studies and music therapy may be fruitfulmethods

for taking

forward

some of the issues

which we have

raised, and they

converge

in our

concluding

examples of the

negative impact

of music.

The locus here is

public

space, and in particular

railway stations and

shopping malls.

Music is

deployed in such

spaces for reasons

that are neither

overtly

commercial(i.e. not

to advertise

or

sell something)

nor aesthetic (i.e.

not as

a focused object of

aesthetic

pleasure), although

such music

draws on

both of these as

part of its

ends

and means.

It also involves

the use of music

in the enforcement

of public

order

and responsibility

n ways

which were highlighted

in the reaction

to raves

in Britainwhere

new laws were

brought in to control

raves

partly in an effort

to regain controlof the acoustic environmentof the English countryside(Cloonan

1996,

pp. 206-11).

Attempts to establish

control of public

spaces

through the deployment

of

music are more

common

than we might

at first imagine, and

national anthems

seem

to crop up rather

frequentlyin this

connection.

One example is

the use of

the

National Anthem in

Beatles concerts

during their

Australian tour

in 1964.

When

the crowd became

over-enthusiastic

at the conclusion

of the shows,

the

management

would play the National

Anthem, and

the rowdy

audience would

dutifully

rise to

its feet and stand

silently, while the

Fab Four made their

escape

via the stage door

(Baker1982, p.

96). In a related

example from

February2000,

it was reported that, following their embarrassingperformancein the African

Cup

of Nations,

the members of

the Ivory Coast

Soccer team, the

Elephants,

were

incarcerated

on theirreturn

home, and required

to perform

militarytraining

(BBC

2000). In

one unconfirmed

radio report, their

humiliationwas climaxed

by

requiring

them

to sing the national

anthem before

a public

gathering. Such

a

punishment

is not unique:

in the

Finnish daily, Helsingin

Sanomat 10

February

2000),

it was reported

that jay-walkers

in the Philippines

were being

fined on

the spot

and forced to

sing the

national anthem.

Our finalexample

of music and

enforcement nvolves

the sanitisation

of public

spaces.In the late

1990stherewere

occasional

and briefreports

n local and provin-

cial newspapers that in the industrialcity of Wollongong,south of Sydney, shop-

ping

malls found that piping

FrankSinatra

over the

speakersdispersed

loitering

gangs

of youths. Although

barely noted at

the time,

the idea has recently

been

adapted

with apparently

great success in railway

stationsnotoriously

susceptible

to vandalism.

Over a six-week

period in early

2000,Beethoven,

Mozart,

Bach and

Brahmswere

piped onto five Sydney

metropolitan

train stations,

resulting in an



12/14

Killingme

softlywith his

song 37

overall

seventy-five

per cent reduction in

vandalism, and completely

eliminating it

at two stations. It is

now planned to pipe

the same

music into railway carriages

themselves (Rogers

2000;

Sun-HeraldSydney],30 April

2000).

Conclusion

Finally,

here is a recent example

of the convergence of

music, politics

and pain, one

which

situates this

question very much in the

mundane realm of the

everyday. In

Australia in 2000,

the most culturally

reactionarygovernment in forty

years was

trying to introduce

radical tax reform. There

was a debate as to

whether its multi-

million

dollarpublicity

campaign was

politicalpropagandathat should

be funded

by the

party, or a

public education project

to be funded from the

public purse.

For

what appears to be the

majority, he

campaign, its slogans and its

music were

profoundlyoffensive. The music was Joe Cocker'sversion of 'UnchainMy Heart'.

At the end of the

commercial,a voice-over

informed the

television audience that

'This

message was

spoken and sung by

(whichever politician

narrated) and Joe

Cocker'.Cocker

attempted(unsuccessfully)to

have his name removed.

As a jingle

for one of the

world's most

right-wing anglophone

governments, the use of his

music

in this way

caused him 'pain'.

If music is to

be deployed to serve the

same, often

punitive,functions as other

mechanisms of public control,

and as a TrojanHorse for

policy proclamationand

indoctrination, then

there are some

interesting and even

alarming implications.

These

can be prefaced with a

question that might at first

seem

frivolous, until it is

situated in largerissues which have emerged regardingintellectualproperty, and

the politics of the

social constructions of

meaning. Did the US

marines pay any

royalties when they used music

to implementstate policy

in Panama?4Apart from

copyright

considerations, should the public

deployment

of music as law enforce-

ment

then be subject to the

same statutory

constraintsrelating to,

for example,

rights

of entry,

invasion of private space,

human rights scrutinies,

dentity disclos-

ures?

Music is one of the most

invasive expressive forms,

and there is

legislation to

prevent citizens

from imposing

it upon one another.

What legislation constrains

governments?Who controls this

function, and

by what rights?Where

does it stand,

forexample under

the

Westminster eparation-of-powers

rinciple: s it in the juris-

dictionof the courts or of the politicalexecutive?

If

the 'pain' of a Joe Cocker

song being appropriated

as a right wing political

message seems

something morelike 'irritation',

nd the case

seemsrelatively nnocu-

ous, it

is perhapsprecisely this

scale which

should signal more clearly

some of the

broadersocial

implicationsof theconvergence.

The bulletins

from the formerYugos-

lavia

are outrageousexamples of

state-sanctioned error,but they are

also remote

from the everyday

lives of most people. For

First World

and anglophone cultural

researchers, hey are ghastly

dramatisationsof a hideous

'other',against

which we

may

rail in justifiableanger . . .

and then go backto living

lives which areso relatively

tranquilas to appear

o requireno outrageor

interrogation.Popularmusic

studies are

tellingus about thepositiveenergies latent n the mundane,but themundane as well

as thebanal may also

be the locus of evil.

Oppressionand

inequityfrequently nvade

a society through

apparently

unremarkablehifts that seem

harmlessatthe time. Dis-

empowermentand

oppressioncan be brutally

mposedthrough state

terror,but they

are

quietly naturalised through

the channels of everyday

life and

through means

barely

registeredat

the moment of their

mplementation.Andmusic is one

of themost

pervasive

experiencesof everyday

life.



13/14


Endnotes

1. Control of public soundscape has been a

common concernof authoritarian egimes, and

the Indexon Censorship as reporteda number

of incidents relating to this. In the Old Town

Square in Prague in December 1987, police

played Christmassongs through loudspeakers

in order to disrupt a meeting of anti-

governmentprotesters Index n Censorship,7/

2, p. 38). In 1980s'LatinAmerica,radio stations

critical of authoritarian egimes found them-

selves ordered to change to music formats.For

example, in Guatemala in 1983, the military

regime imposed a censorshipsystem in which

radio stationswere ordered o play only martial

music (Indexon Censorship,2/5, p. 43). Mean-

while in 1986the Paraguayan alk stationRadio

Nanduti, which had reportedon opposition to

the country'sdictator,Stroessner,was made to

broadcast only music and 'non-controversial'

news (Indexon Censorship,5/7, p. 43). We are

grateful o VanessaBastianand Dave Laing for

these examples.

2. This developmentand its associateddebatesare

examined at length in Johnson (2000, pp. 81-

105).

3. See, for example,Stockfelt 1994,esp. p. 32).

4. Not according to AC/DC guitarist, Angus

Young, as quoted in Simmons(2000,p. 84). We

are grateful o one of our students,SimonJolly,

for this reference.

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Cloonan, M. 1996. Banned Censorshipof Popular Music in Britain: 1967-1992 (Aldershot)

Corbin, A. 1999. Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the 19th-Century French Countryside, translated by

Martin Thom (Great Britain)

Dasey, D. 2000. 'How phones drive you loco', Sun Herald (Sydney), 25 May

Gibson, V. 1999. 'Campaigning against noise: getting into action', Hearing RehabilitationQuarterly,24/1

Herbert, S. 2000. 'Music putting minds out of key', Sydney Morning Herald, 8 April

Johnson, B. 2000. The InaudibleMusic (Sydney)

Katzenell, J. 2000. 'Wagner concert rattled by protest', Sun-Herald (Sydney), 20 October, p. 57.

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Martin, P. 2000. 'They bang the eardrums', NME, 27 May, pp. 20-1

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14/14

Killing

me softlywith his

song 39

Media reports

with no byline

'Turn

down the silence, please',Sydney

Morning Herald, 15

October1999

'Oi Maamme,

Filippinit',Helsingen Sanomat

(Finland),10 February

000

'Wagnercauses discord',

Sydney Morning Herald,

10 April 2000 (syndicated rom

New York Times)

'Beethoven,

Mozartand Bach

deter rail vandals',Sun-Herald

(Sydney),

30 April 2000

killing me softly with his song an initial investigation into the use of popular music as a tool

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