Greta Thunberg's UN speech is now, as it was always meant to be, a death metal song

Greta Thunberg’s United Nations Climate Action Summit speech last week may end up as one of the defining moments of our era. Furious and eloquent, the 16-year-old articulated the boiling frustrations of a generation fed up with the political inaction that continues to stall on the increasingly dire need for strong climate change policy. Her refrain of “How dare you?,” addressed to the world’s most powerful decision-makers, will resound for years to come as a call to action for ordinary people and a rebuke of the dismissals and half-measures that have led us to a time of such terrifying environmental precarity.

Now, in case you needed the speech’s confrontational words to be matched by equally aggressive music, John “Mollusk” Meredith has offered up “Greta Thunberg Sings Swedish Death Metal,” which, we’re pleased to report, is (subgenre quibbles aside) exactly what its title promises.

A distorted guitar squeals feedback and begins to chug an atonal riff as Thunberg’s asked to begin her speech: “My message is that we’ll be watching you,” she says, kicking off a musical frenzy. Thunberg’s words are goblin-pitched as she continues; the UN clip’s colors change; the drums pound—eventually a guitar solo starts, riding a sustained note before the assault begins again. The instrumental is fast, nasty, and demonic. Words like “People are suffering” and “People are dying” become even more threatening when growled. The whole thing rules.