Parent's Music Resource Council's "Filthy Fifteen"
Two of these are considered filthy because of their violent nature. The latter on the list is featured on the home page of this website. The other has lyrics that are very questionable upon first glance. However, careful research into the band and their changing nature, one easily finds that the lyrics and the song in general are the band's way of saying "screw you" to a bad manager they had some problems with after the release of their album Too Fast For Love. The band is not telling anyone to kill themselves, not even this person whom the song is written for, it is merely an attempt to publish their discontent with this person. The song itself is clearly not a call for killing. As for "We're Not Gonna Take It" the video for the song is more under question than the lyrics. If one listens to the song in the video, the lyrics are simply saying that something must happen. The song does not call for any specific action to be taken, nor does it condone any action done in response to the song. Dee Snider, the lead singer for Twisted Sister, was called up himself to testify in the Senate hearing for the PMRC in response to his song being placed on the list by their committee. Mr. Snider brings the point home that the music itself is not violent and that it cannot be violent. Music, for him, is an expression of his feelings, and to say that they are violent and they could cause harm to others is a personal stab at his creativity and freedom to write about what he pleases. Mr. Snider makes this point in defense of the entire metal music community. Heavy Metal music is just simply that: music. Music is an expression of oneself, an otherwise undefinable term. To blame heavy metal music for violence would be the same to blame Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for the same thing. Certainly both of these pieces invoke an emotional response, but does that make them the source of human emotion? That thought is simply unfathomable, as backed by Mr. Snider. Music is free expression, the connection to anything larger is the discretion of the individual listener, they are the ones with the control of themselves, and they control what they take away from listening to music. To be human is the power to decipher and to gather one's own meaning from a secondary medium, what is heard and what is meant are defined by the listener. Music is not to blame for problems, music is a way to deal with them, or a paradise to escape to. Who would better know this than an artist, a lyricist himself, especially one on trial. Music is what we make of it.