Meg Gardiner brings up the question of country music and a statistical connection to suicide. I’d heard of this phenomenon a lot of years ago, but it got me thinking. When I was a teenager, there was the whole fiasco about backwards messages in some heavy rock music. I remember, in particular, a court case involving the band Judas Priest having a case brought against them by the parents of someone who shot himself and his friend. Supposedly, there were Satanic messages which led people to commit murder and suicide.
So, the question is, why this interest in whether certain types of music lead to suicide, rather than (to pick anything at random) an interest in chess, fly fishing or learning candle-making?
Is it the old suspicion that there’s something dark in music and the arts in general? Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads and Vivaldi selling his soul to become the world’s greatest violinist are perhaps myths reflecting a certain puritanical sensibility still strongly rooted in our society. In more than one religion around the world, art is seen as suspect – seductive, false and idolatrous. Perhaps the obsession with whether music leads to suicide is part of that strong cultural thread – just a more secular modern version.
I don’t know. It’s interesting though.
