Hitler's Monorchism, Brown Notes and PSYOPS

Some time ago, I disrespected one of Armstrong and Miller (I'm not sure which one is which - why can't all double acts be clearly labelled, like Little and Large) because he was rude about cabaret. However, I am a fan of their earlier work, especially this sketch...

And it's funny because it's true - in a manner of speaking. Turns out that there was all sorts of PSYOPS going on in WWII, including special tunes for sinking ships...

..and an arms race over who could make the best version of Lili Marlene (banned by the Nazis, translated by the Allies and played over the radio to demoralise the German troops). While stories about 'the brown note' or Jamaican freedom fighters using their hunting horns and drums for both counter-intelligence and scaring the colonial enemy are fun, there's something fascinating about the use of music as a weapon in the battle for 'hearts and minds.'

This isn't about making noise a weapon, but follows the advice of William Burroughs - why shoot the vehicle when you can kill the driver? Burroughs was talking about taking out the mind, or soul, rather than the body, and this is what these tunes aim to do. Goodwin talks of 'earworms' - memetic melodies that get stuck in the brain (the Chucklevision theme tune, for example) - and suggests they are a strategy of advertisers to win over the consciousness of the potential consumer. The Russian army had a special song that called Hitler a louse, burrowing into his soldiers' clothes and flesh. 

Even in a hot war like WWII, the PSYOPS were working out how music could used: not in the clumsy way, as mere sound like when they blasted rock'n'roll at Noriega. This is a more subtle strategy that doesn't kill the enemy, it converts them.

So maybe that's what Joshua was up to outside the walls of Jericho.