Milgram’s shock experiments have inspired songs and music, TV shows, novels, films, and even performance art.
Peter Gabriel was the first to use Milgram’s shock experiments as inspiration back in 1986 with his song “We do what we’re told-Milgram’s 37”.
But Gabriel’s not the only one to put the experiments to music. Harvard social psychologist Daniel Wegner has recorded The Milgram Obedience Song. Described as ‘cool electrogroove’ it samples original recordings of the experiment, complete with learner screams and experimenter’s commands.
There’s nothing in Wegner’s professional profile to hint at the reasons for this composition although I did wonder if his interest in mind control might have something to do with it.
How would Milgram feel about his shock experiments turning into someone else’s soundtrack?
Milgram was an aspiring artist. He painted, made films, wrote fiction and music. His wife Alexandra told me that in the 1950s Milgram wrote a musical with a friend based on the O’Henry story ‘The Gift of the Magi’. But the Broadway producer they went to see stood them up in favour of another composer with an idea for a musical. The composer was Leonard Bernstein, the idea was for a musical called West Side Story.
Milgram’s Broadway career was not to be. Instead Milgram channelled his artistic inclination into his scientific work.
Privately Milgram worried that his shock experiments were more art than science. But publicly he shied away from such comparisons, especially when it came to similarities between then popular reality TV show Candid Camera and the shock experiments. Such comparisons had the potential to undermine the scientific status of his work.
Milgram turned down Peter Gabriel’s request to use footage from the Obedience documentary in Gabriel’s performances on stage. Subsequently, Gabriel’s album featuring the Mllgram song became a bestseller and has been rated as one of the 1001 albums to listen to before you die.
I think Milgram would have been flattered to think that musicians have been inspired by his work. It’s not quite Broadway, but it’s close enough.