Exegesis of John Darnielle's Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton

The best ever death metal band out of denton
were a couple of guys, who'd been friends since grade school.
One was named cyrus, and the other was Jeff,
and they practiced twice a week in Jeff's bedroom.

The best ever death metal band out of denton
never settled on a name, but the top three contenders,
after weeks of debate,were Satan's Fingers,
and The Killers, and the Hospital Bombers.

Jeff and Cyrus believed in their hearts they were headed
for stage lights and leer jets, and fortune and fame.
So in script that made prominent use of a pentagram,
they stenciled their drumheads and guitars with their names.

This was how Cyrus got sent to the school
where they told him he'd never be famous,
and this was why Jeff,
in the letters he'd write to his friend,
helped develop a plan to get even.
when you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don't expect him to thank or forgive you.
the best ever death metal band out of denton
will in time both outpace and outlive you.
Hail satan, hail satan tonight. Hail satan, hail hail.


I'm touched every time I hear this song.  In this simple tune, Darnielle manages to capture and preserve the elusive, hidden evil behind many modern tragedies, not a paranormal sightings of the mytho-symbolic Satan of the Christian tradition, but a Weight, the awful heaviness that arises after encounters with  senseless and needless physical and psychological violence.

In this case, the absurd situation arises from tragic misunderstanding.  Children, naively hailing the person/symbol of the 'Evil One,' act out maliciously in the name of the most infamous anti-hero of the West, attempting actualize and express their innermost vision and desire.  They collide with adults, who, instead of engaging with the children on the human plane, where healthy unpacking and analysis of emotional ad psychological needs can happen, engage on the symbolic and esoteric plane.  As a result the children are seen as possessed, abnormal, disturbed, and, perhaps, inhuman.


Presumably, the "plan to get even" refers to a plan to kill those who, by punishing them for their choice of symbols, traumatized the teens' internal constellation of emotions, desires and hopes.  The exact fears of the community, projected onto the teens, is realized in the teen's reaction.  As has been seen in the US, the results of such types of cases are, mildly put, tragic.  The hidden groan of man in his powerlessness appears veiled—"Hail Satan".