In Hell, Terrorists Subjected To Endless Loop Of ‘Horse With No Name’

“It’s not even Neil Young – it’s Neil Young wannabe, which is somehow even worse.”

Hades, August 14 – Perpetrators of political violence aimed at innocents face a new regimen of eternal suffering in the afterlife, consisting of a continuous playing of the 1971 single “A Horse with No Name” by the soft-rock group America.

Sources in the underworld told reporters today (Monday) that beginning next week, incoming denizens of Gehenna who earned a place there through terrorism will be subjected to the everlasting torment of hearing the insipid, meandering song play again and again in their ears. The sentence, explained a senior demon, represents an innovation in torture made possible by a revamping of the technology and analytical systems the underworld uses to administer physical and psychic pain.

“We update our systems and methods periodically, and always have,” noted Beelzebub. “In his case, some state-of-the-art analytics led us to the conclusion that the specific combination of factors ‘A Horse with No Name’ features makes it the most appropriate and excruciating sentence for terrorists.”

The effect is even more pronounced on Islamic terrorists, he added. “The fact that the song is performed by a group called ‘America’ is a big psychological blow to sworn enemies of the ‘Great Satan,'” he observed with a chuckle. “But the song is already grating enough without that. It’s not even Neil Young – it’s Neil Young wannabe, which is somehow even worse.”

“Oh my God, it’s an awful, awful song,” seconded Lucifer himself. “What we do is, right at the end, we wait a little less than half a second before starting it again. The new instruments have enabled us to nail down the perfect interval between playings, one that offers the first glimmer of hope that the torture might be over, only to have the terrorist’s spirit crushed anew as the music starts up again – but not quite long enough to offer even a hint of actual respite. It’s delicious.”

Lucifer also spoke of other categories of the damned who would be subjected to the treatment. “The most obvious other candidates for this sort of thing are douches who blast their music, of course,” he grinned. “But by the same token, the designers of automated switchboards – be it in tech support, customer service, or whatever – get to have this special kind of hold music piped into their brains. One of our junior demons, who got into deejaying of late, has even concocted a diabolical mashup of ‘A Horse with No Name’ and an awful, just awful MIDI rendition of Beethoven’s Für Elise that doesn’t even resolve properly and recapitulates in the wrong place.”

“I’m sorry to have put that in your head – I know you don’t deserve it – yet,” he added.

Please support our work through Patreon.