Sesame Street Composer Examines How His Music was Reportedly Used to Torture Gitmo Prisoners
- Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:37pm by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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An award-winning music composer of the children’s show “Sesame Street” is speaking out about his songs reportedly being used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
A new documentary aired Wednesday on Al Jazeera details Christopher Cern’s discovery into how his music — more commonly paired with Big Bird or Bert and Ernie — ended up associated with torture.
“My first reaction was this can’t possibly be true, this is just too crazy,” Cern said in the 47-minute “Songs of War.” “Of course I didn’t really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk.”
It’s not the first time reports have surfaced about music — including children’s but also Metallica and other heavy metal bands — being used against prisoners; the documentary delves into how precisely it was deployed against detainees.
Thomas Keenan of the Human Rights Project said prisoners were strapped into chairs with headphones placed on their heads and music blaring.
“The music for very long periods of time, sometimes hours and days on end, listening to repeated loud music,” Keenan said.
Chris Arendt, a former Guantanamo Bay guard, said in other cases music would just “blast” out of a room.
“It’s like they had a whole concert, ” Arendt said. “It was like a dance club-style music system that they had….Sometimes it was two songs playing against each other, completely off-tempo just like, blaring this rock music with like, a Johnny Cash song against each other.”
Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, described the effects of the music torture: “The music was so loud that everybody in the block could hear it, none of us could sleep….it was probably some of the worst torture that they faced.”
Begg, a British citizen who had moved to Pakistan with his family before being detained, tried to dispel the notion of whether being subjected to music was really torturous.
“It’s not just music…they are in addition to being tied, being shackled, being beaten and tortured and confined,” he said.
“If you can’t hear yourself think, you can’t think. If you can’t think, you have no control of your senses, if you have no control of your senses, you are for all intents and purposes a completely vegetated person and that’s the point: to put somebody in an almost vegetative state where they are simply ready to say anything, comply with anything, only so that the music will be turned off,” Begg said.
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Comments (42)
procholliday
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:59amthat explains alot about myself, uugh
Report Post »Redwood Elf
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 7:25pmSo…songs like “C is for Cookie” and “It’s not easy being Green” cause actual pain? That’s an odd admission from the composer…
Report Post »Gumbercules
Posted on June 2, 2012 at 12:07am@procholliday
Agreed! I bet the same songs from ‘Barney’ have similar effects.
Report Post »texasderek
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 8:39amThey should have used the theme song from Barney the Purple Dinosaur… now that’s torture !!!
Report Post »Redwood Elf
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 11:01pmHeck any of Weebl’s stuff off of YouTube or a playlist built from the “Ear Worm” page on TVTropes ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EarWorm ) would do the trick.
Report Post »exilemusic
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 6:05amLmao! Has anyone been in a teen clothing store? It’s the same thing. At least the guys at guantanamo got to listen to better music.
Report Post »Liberty1791
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 1:34amWow this is so sad that they had to endure this. I would’ve gladly cut their heads off to help them though.
Report Post »inferno
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 9:40pmIf it can be torture, imagine what the kids who watch this program on a daily basis are going through.
Report Post »Sheepdog911
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 9:58pmOMG!!! You mean I’ve been torturing my kids all these years!!?? KMA you POS PIG.
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:23amthis music is in the progressive design to ensnare your kids for the “good of the government”, only.
Report Post »Buckeye4ABO
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 8:59pmLet tha bodies hit tha floor! Let tha bodies hit tha floor! Let tha bodies hit tha floor! LET THA BODIES HIT THA FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 8:40pmWHAA! The government did not do something I like.
Well sesame street is useful after all
Report Post »Honestybefore truth
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 8:34pmOh my God! Now that is just perfect! As anyone who has kids (or has had to watch them) knows that music is enough to cause seizures, embolisms, bleeding from the ears, or insanity. So its perfect for the lowest form of humanity.
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:26amcommie/democ-rats??
Report Post »burnbabylon
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 7:04pmIt’s a torturous day in the neighborhood, a torturous day for a neighbor would you be mine?
Report Post »Mr. Ogres neighborhood.
Buckeye4ABO
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 8:54pmTHAT made me LMAO!
Report Post »LeadNotFollow
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 6:22pm…
Report Post »They should have used some Disney songs on the prisoners.
“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”
AmericanFightingMan1
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 6:35pmWhy not? They‘ve been torturing America’s youth for decades.
Report Post »oldduffer
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 5:59pmNow they know what parents go through while the kids watch it with the t.v. turned up. TORTURE!
Report Post »Should be a way for parents to sue for sanity lost.
G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:38amWhen I wa a widdle-kid, I heard the crapp-songs my friends listened to…..yuck! I went to my neighbor and asked what they listened to…….JAZZ!!! Wow! DorseyBrothers, AndrewSisters, PeteFountain, SephanGrapelli/HotClubOfFrance……. . My dad took me to a used-reccord-store in downtown Chicago, and found me some real music(and a reccord-cleanin kit). Then, annother neighbor gave me a good-used hi-fi porable phono. I mixed in a little EubieBlake, some Country, and other very-loveable music. This was (and still is) my “kiddie” music. Of course, I added some r&b, R&Roll, and a few others with real music inside.
Report Post »cdavis411
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 5:27pmits a damn-sight better that Danny Pearl got
Report Post »georgepatton
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 5:14pmThey played all of Obammy’s speeches over and over ………….worst case of suicide I ever seen!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:42amAmd O’bAammy gaved all his speaches on an Ipod, to Queen Lizzie of England. The first time I was sorry for their country.
Report Post »georgepatton
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 5:12pmOK,
Report Post »Sesame street or cordless drills……………………………….. pick one!
The psycho Islamists use the latter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
raderby
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:37pmthe music is torture to me, insipid crap that it is…….and what does he care? – except maybe he lost royalties…..
Report Post »froggy19510
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:35pmThe terrorists should have to listen to this for 24 hours a day with 1 hour breaks of listening to Barny the dinosaur. Maybe throw it’s a small world too just for good measure.
Report Post »markgl
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:19pmHe should be happy. His music is actually doing something good!
Report Post »shimauma
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:19pmSUUUUunny day! Sweepin the cloooooouuuuuds away! Yeah I can see how that could be torturous…C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!!
Report Post »GaryInTheMiddle
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:18pmWhy should parents be the only ones tortures with this stuff?
Report Post »macpappy
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:14pmThey should have used Christian hymns. Killed two birds with one stone.
Report Post »Git-R-Done
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 8:38pmThat music would also torture liberals.
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:46amthat’s “3-birds with one stone” (3 with one blow).
Report Post »goahead.makemyday
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:09pmWho believes anything on aljazeera anyways?
Report Post »macpappy
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:15pmEvery rag head listening, all of the MSNBC staff, the white house advisers, your President.
Report Post »ChiefGeorge
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 4:03pmI prefer Rudyard Kiplings “Boots” marching up and down again…..SERE 1988!
It doesn’t matter really what song you use. John Denvers Rocky Mountain High played over and over could be the thing that tips someone over the edge. Its repetition not the song, like the Chinese water torture. Drip…Drip…Drip…arrrg! If I was running it, I would play “Play that Funky Music” by Wild Cherry. Playing in a Rock-n-Roll band yea!
Report Post »Seagal45
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:56pmOhhhh poor little terrorists being tortured with Sesame Street music, I feel so horribly bad for them. What a crock of crapola. Raising my children that song was going through my head all the time, maybe I should sue or something. They are terrorists, who gives a darn what was done to them? Drawn and quartered would be the preferred method after a few sessions of waterboarding. Cry me a river.
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 10:52am“Drawn and *quartered”….with increases* for inflation. The good-old “5&10cent store” is now…
Report Post »“The $50)&$100-dollar store”.
Mandors
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:49pm“an almost vegetative state where they are simply ready to say anything, comply with anything, only so that the music will be turned off”
Yeah, that’s pretty much my general reaction to Sesame Street.
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:57pmAt least it was not that Barney song! When my now adult son would turn the TV up and sing along with that when he was a preschooler it would drive me nuts. And, that was just for a one half hour show.
Report Post »blanco5
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:42pmIt totures me too!
Report Post »GhostOfJefferson
Posted on May 31, 2012 at 3:50pmYou beat me to it, was going to note that it’s been used to torture millions of people! :)
Report Post »