A Brief History of Known Worlde Torture and Execution
("The Torture Song")
by:  Lord Dunstan LeHeryngmongere
Copyright 2002 by Keith Nealson


Chord progression:   G     G     C     D /  G   G   D   G

Chorus:
The torture song, the torture song,
A little bit gruesome, a little bit long.
I Hope your stomach’s strong
When you sing the torture song.

Lets go back to 400 (BC that is) and if you’ve read
'The Frog’ by Aristophanes you’d know the pain they chose...
They’d hang a man up by his thumbs 
Until his hands and arms went numb
Then turn him upside down and pour some vinegar up his nose.

Then we turn to ancient Rome- lots of sadists made it home!
Caligula sawed men in half- slowly on the rack.
Phalaris had bronze bull statues built and then put Christians or Jews
Inside and burnt them alive while eating a light snack.

...and let us not forget the bible, and it’s many references to crime and punishment...

Leviticus says don’t talk to the dead or you get rocks thrown at your head
Claim to be a virgin and you're not- you also will be stoned
Rebellious sons get stoned to death.  
Blasphemers get stoned to death.
Who’da thunk those Christians were so into getting stoned?

...and by all means, let us not forget the Saints...

In 250- don’t scoff-  Saint Agatha had her breasts chopped off.
Only 8 years later St. Lawrence made the books-
They put him on a griddle and cooked him slow 
And flipped him half way through, you know
Now for some strange reason he’s the patron Saint of cooks

If you lived in china in 800 AD 
And you had been convicted of a nasty heinous crime (like spitting on the street)
You may have had the honor of a style of execution
Known as the death of 1000 cuts- a really nasty time.
They’d label a bunch of knives at random
Put ‘em in a box and them they’d hand ‘em
One at a time they’d hand ‘em at random
To a man most skilled.
Each knife labeled with a body part
The executioner would start to
Slowly mutilate the part
Slice after slice till the part fell apart
The very worst of this torture was
You had to watch everything he does!
And pray to God that the very next knife
Was a part- like the heart- so to end your life.

In 1124 King Henry I passed a law I adore
And if you’ve got a student loan I’m sure that you’ll approve
Moneylenders caught while stealing had to lose that loving feeling
Had their right hand and both of their testicles removed.

And let’s give a bow to Richard Roose of 1531
A well-known cook who poisoned 17 people just for fun.
They did not want to chop his head or put him to the noose
So they legalized boiling a man alive 
And made a soup of Richard Roose

That’s right. I’ve been told it had been raining for 2 weeks straight, and that the combination of the boiling water and the freezing rain caused him to shiver maniacally throughout the boiling .It was the first recorded case of Long Rain Wild Roose. 

In 16th century Europe they liked to tie you down
And clamp your mouth wide open- and help to quench your thirst
They’d start to pour the water down your throat to make you drown
You’d drown on dry land unless your stomach exploded first.

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This site is maintained by Ursula von Bremen - this page was  updated 18 November, 2006.