Greta Thunberg’s impassioned plea at the United Nations Climate Action Summit last week excoriating world leaders took the internet by storm. Now, a new version of the teen environmental activist’s speech — set to death metal — has gone viral.
Among the fans of the adaptation? Thunberg herself.
Titled “Greta Thunberg sings Swedish Death Metal,” the video, created by a musician, sets Thunberg’s speech to harsh guitar chords and distorts the 16-year-old Swedish girl’s voice into a growl.
“This is all wrong,” Thunberg roars in the video as the screen flashes different colors and drums bang.
“I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean.”
The music climaxes each time after Thunberg, holding back tears, asks world leaders: “How dare you?”
The video, uploaded last Wednesday by user John Mollusk, had more than 3.1 million views as of Monday morning. Over the weekend, Thunberg tweeted out a link to it, joking, “I have moved on from this climate thing… From now on I will be doing death metal only!!”
The creator did not immediately return a request for comment from NBC News. But in an interview last week with Rolling Stone magazine, which identified the creator as thrash-metal drummer John Meredith, he said he was prompted to make the video because he agreed with Thunberg’s perspective and also thought her searing language lent itself to metal.
“When I saw her speech, I was very impressed by her passion and outrage,” he told the magazine, adding, “I guess I didn’t really have a specific intent other than to turn her brutal words into a metal song.”
Thunberg is no stranger to having her words turned into music.
Children’s singer Raffi recently devoted an entire song to her, called “Young People Marching.” Björk has broadcast her during concerts. And pop band The 1975 used a speech of hers as the intro track of one of their albums.
