So we’re a tad late to the game on this one (seriously), but:

HOLY. CRAP.

Back at the end of September an anonymous Gmail account identified only as “Expecto Patronus” sent out a blast message to the entire Dartmouth student body.

(Apparently this happens regularly.)

Among the contents of said email was a three-stanza riff on … well, uncertain. On its own, the thing is actually fairly oblique: “Welcome to Dartmouth; we are glad you are here; Prepare to surrender; what you hold most dear.”

(Sunlight?)

The poem moves swiftly from salutations into evocations of all-enveloping darkness in such a way that mostly just leaves us scratching our heads. But clarity, it turns out, was granted in the form of a musical number titled “Out of Control,” included as an attachment with the email, and — OH MY GOODNESS IT’S A SIX-MINUTE SONG ABOUT RAPISTS.

Let’s break it down, though, because this is deranged: Starts innocently enough. The propulsive drum beat and screeching electric guitar. Shredding axe. Fuck yeah…

Only to catch us off guard when the twee vocalist with the affect of an Auto-Tune suddenly transitions into a throaty growl as she ravages the Greek community (figuratively, people, c’mon) with her acid-tinged couplets.

There are roofies and underwear mishaps; negligent college officials; Dementor-esque fraternity brothers with no reservations about sucking out your soul through their Ice-stained maws. And, somewhere in the middle, the whole thing breaks into a minute-long November Rain guitar solo. So. Yeah. What exactly are we supposed make of this?

For starters, there’s the dissonance between the song’s themes (dark) and its presentation (an imbroglio of heavy-handed Guitar Hero histrionics). The Guns N Roses pastiche doesn’t help. And, do we count it as irony that the singer’s choice of a vocal aid — the Auto-Tune — has provided the musical accompaniment for its fair share of sexual misdeeds?

Long story short, the song mostly just confuses the hell out of us — and everyone else too, by the looks of it. For example, an opinion columnist for the Dartmouth gave an account of the ballad that puts the “silly” in “supercilious”:

“’Out of Control’s’ eschatological refrain … has offered you a Miltonic Satan singer: compelling, victimized; brooding, cynical; most importantly, destructive … Sexual assault is a real problem at Dartmouth. But to say that my alma mater is a place where humanity dies is turgid poetics.”

So, rather than grasping at straws, we’ll just say this: Date rape is messed up. But so is this song.

After the jump, an (abridged) transcription of the song’s lyrics:

“Out of Control”
Once at a party, a nice young girl
Was ready to go home, so a bro walked her back
And all of a sudden her world went black
And you guessed it my friend, this Dartmouth frat bro attacked

She woke up next morning feeling [unintelligible]
For the events of last night she could not recall
That frat bro was truly nothing more than sleaze
For the college doctor told her that she had a disease

So why do we put up with all the wicked lies
Why do we go to a place where humanity dies?
When you have that much money,
There’s nothing you can’t do
You can rape all the poor freshmen that you ever wanted to.

The Dartmouth frat bro will steal your soul.
He’ll pull it right out of you from any hole
He’ll get all sketchy on you from behind
And leave you with no faith in mankind

The Dartmouth frat bro will steal your soul
I’m telling you his hormones are out of control
These are rape kids waiting to happen to you
And the college doesn’t care, which is messed up too.

Fast forward

They seem so proper and educated
You’d never have a clue
You’d would never on first glance have guessed
That they were rapists too.

With all the power that they have
They can get away with what’s wrong
But the one thing they can’t get rid of
Is this humble song

Ed: (No matter how hard we try.)