Emanuel Swedenborg is metal.
Caption: Swedenborg, with a book of METAL.
Never during my years at the Academy of The New Church did I ever guess how Metal Swedenborg is. Then, last week, I heard this song by Swedish metal band Therion. It’s called “The Dreams of Swedenborg” on their “Lemuria B” album.
Okay, that’s a very un-metal fragment of the whole song and you can’t even hear the awesome Swedish-accented lyrics that go like this:
Wake up in the darkest hour!
Angels are surrounding you
In the borderland of heaven
Lucid are yor dreams tonight
Open a door, a gate in a dream
(The) dead will pass by to show you the sky
[chorus:]
Astral presence everywhere
In the dreams of Swedenborg
He could see across the sky
Through the boundaries of time
Lucid dreams and astral sight
In the dreams of Swedenborg
Every part of universe’s
Corresponding to the world
Dream a vision clear and splendid
When you visit afterlife
Daedalus Hyperboreus
Delinate the astral world
Write all your dreams in your diary
Give to the world a glimpse of the sky
E-mail me if you want to hear the whole thing.
Update: I posted this at midnight because that is the Metalest time to post things.
I just started working out recently, and I can give this advice: listen to the German industrial band Rammstein if at all possible. It’s like having an evil Teutonic personal trainer screaming in your ear.
Since I don’t speak German, I can only imagine what the lead singer is growling. I like to think it’s something like: “Run faster, fatty, the Stukas are coming!”
Nothing motivates exercise like fear.
Here in the Philly area, we have this thing called Mandatory Metallica. On WMMR, Matt and Huggy play three Metallica songs at 10 p.m. on weeknights. Nowadays, it’s more of a guideline than a rule. You are supposed to listen to it, but nothing really bad happens to you if you don’t. It hasn’t always been that way.
Back in the 90s, many people were dragged from their homes by Pierre “Robespierre” Robert and his gang of thugs called the MMRmy. One night, my sister fell asleep early and missed Mandatory Metallica. She woke up to the sound of clattering hoofs on the pavement outside. Too late, she realized what was happening and turned on the radio just as Robert’s robotic metal nightmare horse broke down the front door. They dragged her behind the mechanical steed all the way up I-95 and whipped her with guitar strings on the steps of the art museum while “Hammer of Justice” played over loudspeakers.
Metallica is older now, and a little bit more laid back. That kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen any more. Hetfield hasn’t chopped anyone’s head off with his guitar in a few years. But whatever I happen to be doing on weeknights at 10 p.m., I drop it and tune in to MMR. And so does my sister.
