I had the misfortune of having to make a visit to the Metro Centre yesterday for reasons that seemed important at the time. As I was waiting at the bus interchange to get back to Gateshead proper, a familiar tune played out over the brushed-steel and glass concourse. The strange thing was, it was a famous piece from a movie. No, not the score from George A Romero's original version of Dawn of the Dead - that would be too direct. The evil management of The Man that monitors our corporate dystopia would never let that through the gates.

No, this much more subtle. This was incredibly subversive. This was the choral piece from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

For those of you not familiar with the piece, the movie is set during the American Civil War. The music in question is sung by a choir of Confederate prisoners in a Union POW camp. The piece is sung by prisoners on the orders of The Bad character (at this point an NCO in the Union army) whenever he's beating the shit out of, or just generally torturing, other prisoners.

It's an odd choice of muzak. I've been mulling it over, and there's only two options I can think of to explain it. Either

(a) it's a cry for help from the mall itself*. Casting itself as the beaten and wounded Confederacy, by playing this piece the consumerist palace says to the hordes who visit it every day to extract precious consumer items from it, it's very lifeblood: 'yes, my cause was unjust, but I don't deserve the abuse of having my roller coaster cut out and the indignity of 3 Collectables outlets'.

(b) The security guards beat up shoplifters in the toilets.

Any further explanations are welcome.

*You know, a bit like Farpoint station in the pilot episode of Star Trek The Next Generation.