I haven't been in college for almost 10 years now, and I still get nightmares about showing up to class and not having my homework, or studying for a final, or some crap that I am so thankful I never have to deal with again.
But, if my college offered a course in "metal lyrics," maybe I wouldn't be so stressed out. It turns out West Texas A&M University is offering such a course.
According to Classic Rock Magazine, West Texas A&M University linguistics professor Martin Jacobsen used the Iron Maiden track “Out of the Silent Planet” off Brave New World to teach his students about sentence structure, and it went over so well, he decided to create a whole course on the matter.
[Jacobson] argues that many metal lyrics have been inspired by the works of history’s greatest writers. “You constantly see these nods to the intellectual tradition that the lyricists come from,” he explains. “Therefore it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s a form of literature as well as a form of music – in much the same way you might say country music is a species of folklore.
“The thematic content of heavy metal lends itself to the same kind of thought processes that reading literature would bring up. IIt talks about things in ways that you have to unlock your mind to understand, just like reading classical literature or any other kind of literature.”
That sounds about as cool as college courses based on the phenomenal HBO series, The Wire.
If you happen to be enrolled in this class or go to West Texas A&M, please drop us a line!
