Photo: Screenshot of music video posted by John Mollusk.
On September 23, 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg—the catalyst of the school strike revolution that has inspired thousands across the globe to ditch school and work on Fridays to fight for a climate emergency—delivered a fiercely powerful speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Popularised by the words, “How dare you”, the speech is a riveting, no-bullshit message asking everyone to get off their asses, stop being so money-minded and work towards a cleaner, greener future. Being compared to other monumental speeches such as “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, the speech has touched a nerve with almost anyone who cares about the world, and has now gone viral faster than you can say “unfuck the planet.” But now, it’s also a viral death metal track courtesy G.T., also known as John Mollusk, a death metal drummer for New York-based thrash metal band, Suaka.
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A track that features a guttural groove to the tune of Thunberg saying, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words", has managed to gather more than four million views on YouTube and will be released widely by Sweden-based Despotz records. But what makes this track all the more better is that all profits from the release will go straight to Greenpeace, the international environmental activist organisation. The label has also urged all death metal fans to raise their voice for what's now become the #Greenmetal movement (hashtag included), take the song to the Billboards Top Singles charts and combat climate change with the same rage and ruckus that one typically finds at death metal concerts.”Greta says it better than neither we on this label nor any other adult so far has been able to say it. So one of the best things we can do is use our platform for spreading her own words. We stand united with her in her quest and are grateful for a chance to contribute in any way!” reads the Despotz's statement. “To be fair, Greta embodies rock music in its full meaning. She is uncompromising, tough as hell and doesn’t give a shit about what people think of her. She is not afraid to tell you about the scariest things imaginable without beautifying it a bit, and that is what metal is about.”What’s even better is that Thunberg is already a muse for several other bands, including The 1975, the popular English band who announced that lines from her speech will be intertwined in the intro for their upcoming album. She’s also captured the attention of Canadian children’s singer Raffi, who sampled her speech to make a song called Young People Marching. Even electronic-heads aren’t far behind, with someone superimposing her speech into Fatboy Slim’s catchy track Right Here Right Now, which has already got over 25,000 views.Since they say nothing stirs the soul like music, hopefully, these renditions of Thunberg’s speech will turn the volume up on the revolution against climate change too.Follow Shamani Joshi on Instagram.