Bob Dylan was included on the syllabus of my tenth grade poetry class. So imagine my righteous adolescent rage when the teacher said I couldn’t write my term paper on the unforgettable poetry Chuck Schuldiner penned for Death’s Scream Bloody Gore. What a crock of shit. FUCK YOU, MR. GLASSMAN!!!

Thus, it warmed the cockles of my heart to read the following on Classic Rock‘s website: after West Texas A&M University linguistics professor Martin Jacobsen had great success utilizing Iron Maiden’s Brave New World track, “Out of the Silent Planet,” to teach his class about sentence structure, the school decided to launch a new class on metal:

[Jacobson] argues that many metal lyrics have been inspired by the works of history’s greatest writers. “You constantly see these nods to the intellectual tradition that the lyricists come from,” he explains. “Therefore it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s a form of literature as well as a form of music – in much the same way you might say country music is a species of folklore. “The thematic content of heavy metal lends itself to the same kind of thought processes that reading literature would bring up. IIt talks about things in ways that you have to unlock your mind to understand, just like reading classical literature or any other kind of literature.”

HA! So take that, Mr. Glassman. You letch. We all used to call you “Mr. Assman” behind your back. Ppppffffttt.

ANYWAY, it should go without saying that I would love to take this class, and it makes me college in a weird way. If any MS readers happen to go to West Texas A&M and do tak the class, please let us know how it is!