Refugees Listen to and Rank the CIA's Torture Songs

Growing up as an Afghan in suburban Melbourne, my mum listened to a lot of George Michael and Milli Vanilli. My dad didn't really listen to music. He just worked his ass off. The music that refugees gravitate toward always fascinated me, so when I heard the CIA was using Western music as a torture tactic I thought about how our relationship with culture was shaped by music.

As a young larrikin, hanging around Dandenong markets while my dad sold sportshoes, our community was loaded with junkies and heroin dealers; a potent cocktail of nationalities and personalities that led me to save my allowance over a few weeks, head to Sanity in The Plaza and buy "R U Still Down" for $40. When 2Pac started spitting, "I'm sick inside my mind, why you sweatin' me? It's gonna take an army full of crooked ass cops to come and get me!", Being 'woke' is an understatement, I felt like I opened up in the same way you expand on mushrooms when the giggles stop and shit gets real. 2pac lyrically addressed our environment and lifestyle as if he was curbside, right there with us, reassuring us that he had our back.

After September 11, rap music lost its urgency for me, Afghanistan was suddenly at the forefront of media attention, Ja Rule was at the top of the charts and we transformed from the weird kids that came from an exotic background to public enemy number 1 on every news desk.

I remember when a weed dealer from Blackburn played me Slayer's "Reign in Blood" for the first time and the emotional paradox of the twin towers falling man juxtaposed with drone attacks in our villages imploded like a cathartic firework. Rap was like looking at a painting and enjoying the aesthetics; Slayer was like a full throttle expression of how we felt. But in Guantanamo, the CIA had been torturing people like us with the music we found comforting. Maybe there was a prisoner in Guantanamo that was repeatedly forced to listen to "Enter Sandman" and subsequently felt the same feelz as me when I first heard Slayer (FYI Slayer > Metallica). Obviously they hated the situation but I wondered if it was so culturally shocking that it disoriented them into torture.

So I decided to team up with a bunch of Iraqi and Afghan refugees to find the worst song to get tortured to, according to the CIA playlist. I met Karim and Najib while playing cricket in Noble Park, we were all Afghans and used our language to covertly communicate on the field. Abdul, Kassim and Aziz were refugees from Iraq that I met at our local barbershop; they paint houses for a living and love blasting the radio all day.

We listened to each track in my cousin's WRX, because he had two subwoofers and an amp that could make your ears bleed, and timed how long it took before we agreed we'd suffered enough. Here are our peer-reviewed results.

There's something a bit anxiety provoking about the start of this song, especially when you listen real loud, you know she's going to yell during the chorus but you're surprised every time. Also we thought it might be a little too sexy for our pious brothers in Islam. Abdul was the most religious of the group and he kept plugging his seatbelt in and then ejecting it, this made everyone really anxious because he wouldn't stop shuffling around. I don't think the reaction was as bad with this track because we were all pretty familiar with it. Apparently it was even on pop music television channels in the Middle East.

Kassim described this song as feeling like someone had his head in a vice and kept turning the lever at different speeds. Abdul was moving back and forth as if he were in some weird hypnotised meditation, or as if he was reciting Quranic verses like kids in madrasas. Either way, he looked very uncomfortable.

This song was creepy in the same way innocent kids are fucking creepy in horror movies. I imagine that's what Guantanamo would feel, like a horror movie. The boys looked really deeply disoriented by this one, especially because it was wedged between two completely different genres, it was like a slow churning madness was about to ensue as opposed to a an abrupt kind of shock because it was different.

Everyone felt the same way about this track, we felt like it was going somewhere but it just never got there. When he's like TODAYYY at the end, god I was glad it was over (Resisting urge to make t-t-today Billy Madison reference, even though that was exactly how we felt). Karim kept sighing really dramatically. It was as monotonous as I imagine playing a slot machine app would be if there was no money involved.

Aziz couldn't handle Eminem's voice. He said his voice in combination with the music made him think of crazy people; "you know like when people are so nice and happy and over exaggerate everything to the point where they look psychotic?" That sounds more like those people in the middle of shopping centres selling skin care products, pal.

Karim said "why can't she have a nice voice, like Nancy Ajram, there's no nice flavours in the voice." Nice flavours? Bro, firstly they're all guys and secondly, it's not ice cream its torture music. Also I think "You Should Be Dancing" is way more annoying. This one was middle of the line because disco rip-offs were quite common in the Middle East. Even though the style is overly flamboyant, Kassim argues that we are a pretty uplifting flamboyant type of people. Sometimes… When there's no war. Anyway, I'm still wondering what the method is to this madness.

Every one of my friends unanimously hated this song and they didn't believe me when I told them that this style of singing is actually quite popular. This was the moment I thought, shit, we aren't all the same; their reaction to the vocals felt like I had just pulled a horrible practical joke on them that had just ended up being sad. Except the joke was on me. I was sad and couldn't understand why their reactions were so allergic when we shared so much culturally.

The laugh. The nasally vocals. The giggle before the kids get involved. Very strange shit. I feel sorry for anyone that has to listen to this for longer than ten minutes. And thank god it's not on TV for kids to watch anymore. That big purple creep always freaked me out though. Is it a Middle Eastern thing? I'm not sure, maybe the CIA got this one right.

Najib said this song sounds like hell. He isn't even that religious but he told us he was certain that this is from hell and that we should stop listening. Aziz said Najib was from a superstitious village and that he knows best, so we changed the track. Either way, he was acting really weird and confused. I suspect this one was also picked well.

The Meow Mix was the most uncomfortable, I think it had something to do with the unfamiliar proximity of cats meowing so loud, we didn't have any pets and the cousins that did only kept dogs, and the dogs were ALWAYS kept outside. There was a cultural gap and a superstitious element that were both being exploited simultaneously. When we listened to this we realized the CIA had got something right. Music isn't always stressful when it's loud heavy metal, to really torture someone you have to give them a taste of nostalgia that is unsettled by something mundane, repetitive and abrasive. GG, CIA. GG.

"All Eyez On Me" – Tupac
We don't know why the CIA picked this track, it's like they just Googled the most popular Tupac album and picked the title-track. SMH. Clearly the most unsettling was Ghetto Gospel with Elton John.

"Raspberry Beret" – Prince
I just put this in here because I couldn't believe they tried to torture people with Prince. Idiots. Everybody loves Prince.

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