Hell is full of musical amateurs; music is the brandy of the damned
Lords of Chaos“HELL IS FULL OF MUSICAL AMATEURS; MUSIC IS THE BRANDY OF THE DAMNED.” The expression appears as an epigraph at the threshold of the chapter titled “WELCOME TO HELL,” turning a compact joke about music into a frame for the darkness that follows.
Wording and Attribution
The line is attributed to George Bernard Shaw and identified with Man and Superman. Its two clauses pivot from the comic image of Hell crowded with incompetent musicians to a more memorable metaphor: music as the brandy of the damned. The contrast gives the saying its bite, making music at once a pleasure and a fitting sustenance for those condemned to Hell.
Placement in the Book
The epigraph follows an account of Dead’s suicide and the unrealized performances and rituals he had imagined for Sweden. Against that stark narrative, Shaw’s polished wit supplies an abrupt tonal turn. Its position before “WELCOME TO HELL” also makes the word “Hell” a hinge: first a punchline in the epigraph, then the chapter’s declared setting and atmosphere.
Framing Effect
The expression does not explain the events that precede it; instead, its placement invites the reader to carry the image of music as the damned’s intoxicant into the next chapter. The joke’s neatness sits uneasily beside the book’s preceding account of death and its description of Black Metal as rejecting what is considered good or life-affirming. That tension makes the epigraph more than a decorative quotation: it sets a darkly amused register for the chapter that begins beneath it.
