Scalia: Music Improves His Disposition, But Loud Rock Would Spur Confession
Justice Antonin Scalia likes to listen to Bach when he is drafting his opinions and has baroque music on his iPod for airplane rides populated by chatty adolescents.
The justice talked about his musical tastes in what may be his “zaniest interview”—for the Mad About Music show on New York City classical music station WQXR, the National Law Journal reports.
Scalia told interviewer Gilbert Kaplan that sometimes he listens to music—especially Bach—when drafting opinions. “It sets your mind in order and I think some other music disorders your mind; confuses it,” he said. The radio station posted a transcript of the program that aired Jan. 3.
“Music is a part of my life,” Scalia said. “It’s helped my disposition. And I suppose a happy judge is a better judge.”
Scalia is a big opera and classical music fan, but his musical tastes don’t extend to rock. He told Kaplan that “Sh-Boom” is last pop song he recalls liking. “It is the last pop piece, rock piece, that I remember really liking before rock descended into noise and ugliness,” Scalia said. “I mean, I really cannot listen to modern hard rock and steel guitars and so forth. But this one was musical—it had a cheer and a beat to it.”
Kaplan asked Scalia if being forced to listen to rock music could constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Replied Scalia: “You know they claim that one of the tortures inflicted upon captured combatants was playing horrible rock music to them while they were in their cells. That would cause me to confess in no time at all.”
