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<\/a>(Photo: Cindy (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>On 9 February 1986, the late Ian Paisley stood to deliver his sermon at the Martyr\u2019s Memorial Church in Belfast.<\/p>\n
Paisley was, as usual, horrified by the world. That particular week he had one thing in mind: \u201cRock music is satanic,\u201d Paisley told the assembled. \u201cLet me repeat that, rock music is satanic, and those who have studied it have proved that conclusively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reverend\u2019s attention had been drawn back to rock music by the visit to Belfast of heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne. Osbourne had, Paisley intoned, been \u201csacked by another satanic organisation called ‘Black Sabbath'” for his drinking. And now this man was on Paisley\u2019s territory.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] is the intention of the devil to carry the battle for youthful minds, for youthful hearts and for youthful bodies. The citadel of man is his soul, and the battle is on in this city for the souls of the youth of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paisley was a man capable of seeing demons everywhere but in himself, but he was not alone in his conviction that satan himself was acting through music and other media to destroy young minds (though he may have been alone in his later belief that line dancing induced lustfulness).<\/p>\n
The mid 80s and early 90s were a time when many people seemed convinced that pop musicians were having weekly conference calls with beelzebub on how to corrupt and destroy the world\u2019s youth. Osbourne\u2019s fellow Brummie rockers Judas Priest found themselves accused of causing the suicides of two young fans by planting subliminal messages in their records.<\/p>\n
(Meanwhile, in an atmosphere of moral panic, Tipper Gore and her comrades at the Parents Music Resource Center were diligently seeking out the rude bits on every record released and taking careful note, like schoolboys who\u2019d found a discarded copy of Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover.<\/p>\n
Pressure from the PMRC would lead to the \u201cParental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics\u201d stickers put in the cover of every fun record released between 1985 and 1995, and contributed to the atmosphere where Miami Bass act 2 Live Crew found themselves in the dock for obscenity over their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be, the lewd content of which even the black and white stickers did not provide adequate warning for, it was claimed. Aptly, the song S&M on the 2 Live Crew album Move Somethin’, which preceded As Nasty As They Wanna Be, contained the lyric \u201cI’m a disciple of Satan, with work to do\u201d.)<\/p>\n
One could argue that it\u2019s a bit much to call your band Black Sabbath and then complain about being demonised. But it\u2019s not just bat-biting metal bands that have faced accusations of evildoing.<\/p>\n
William Friedkin\u2019s The Exorcist, based on the novel of the same name, is one of the most Christian films ever made. Portraying the demonic possession of a young girl, what\u2019s fascinating in watching The Exorcist now is how little of it is actually concerned with the \u201cexorcism\u201d itself. Huge chunks of the film are used in watching the priest Father Damien Karras explore every other avenue for the girls physical and mental state apart from possession. It is only in the last third of the film that the exorcist of the title appears, and the demon possessing the child is finally defeated. \u201cYou can have all the education and science you want,\u201d The Exorcist suggests, \u201cbut only faith in God will save you from evil.\u201d<\/p>\n