Hell of a ride ... Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy. Photograph: PA
Well, if they can make a musical about famous Italian plumbers then there's no reason why they can't make one about famous Italian poets too. And so we find in the news today the story of the papal choirmaster who has written a musical based on Dante's Divine Comedy. And the soundtrack for his nine circles of hell? No, not the actual Divine Comedy (although they would have made an apt choice) but punk rock.
But, really, isn't the idea that punk music should represents hell a little tired in 2006? Just because it's noisy and once said some rude words to Bill Grundy doesn't exactly make it the world's most unpleasant form of music. Has choirmaster Monsignor Marco Frisina never been stuck in a lift in the Britannia Centre, Hinckley? Has he never been on the revolving dancefloor at the Bondi Beach club? Does he not own the turgid meat'n'potatoes rock evident on the Dirty Pretty Things' album?
All right, probably not. But it did get me thinking - there's every chance the Vatican have bookmarked this blog and are on the lookout for someone to sort this lame soundtrack out. So, Pope Benedict XVI, if you're reading - here's what my soundtrack to Dante's Inferno would be.
Let's start with the gluttons in the third circle. They were made to lie in the mud under continual rain and hail and there's only one soundtrack suitable for that - the Glastonbury Town Band. Oh, and if you always thought the lustful in the second circle got off rather lightly being blown around in a storm for eternity, don't worry. I've left the Black Eyed Peas' My Humps on repeat there, officially the least sexy song of all time.
In the eight circle Dante encounters the fraudulent, those guilty of a knowing evil. Time to reach for the Darkness's Permission To Land, methinks. Also there, we encounter the flatterers wallowing in human excrement. It's Glastonbury again, but worse! Step forward Jools "boogie woogie" Holland and the Rhythm And Blues Orchestra.
To soundtrack the torment of the corrupt politicians, why not blast out the contents of Neil Hamilton's iPod on shuffle. Or worse, peruse George Bush's personal iTunes library - rather bizarrely he's a Thrills fan, surely eternal horror in its purest form?
Oh, and my own personal experience of hell? Being sardine-packed and sweating profusely at Southampton Joiners, waiting for Babyshambles to take the stage with the full knowledge from the band's tour manager that Pete Doherty was just leaving Oxfordshire in a cab. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here? If only they'd stuck that on the venue doors.
