Mr. Torture: Helloween’s Power-Metal Joke About a BDSM Dominant

The German power-metal band Helloween built the “Mr. Torture” single the same way they built the “If I Could Fly” single. “Mr. Torture” is the first track. Like a lot of their lyrics, the song is a joke on purpose, not a straight-faced statement. The character, Mr. Torture, gives women sexual pleasure by doing BDSM. It is cartoon fetish for a metal record. It is there to entertain. It is not a manual, and it is not a lesson. Adults can hear it as a gag.

Power metal likes a galloping guitar riff next to a story that is too big. “Mr. Torture” puts that habit in a sadomasochistic bedroom comedy. He is a dominant played for laughs. Pain and pleasure are stage business in a metal show, not a record of what a real scene is like. If you are hunting mainstream metal that uses dungeon imagery, this song uses it and does not pretend to be oral history from the leather community. The words clown around. It sits closer to a party song.

The joke still landed in a list. Robert Dimery’s book 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die (and 10,001 You Must Download) puts “Mr. Torture” in the appendix. In that book it is the only Helloween song included, listed ahead of the better-known “I Want Out” and “Eagle Fly Free.”

On the track: Andi Deris on vocals, Michael Weikath and Roland Grapow on guitar, Markus Grosskopf on bass, Uli Kusch on drums, and John Ellenbrock on acoustic grand piano.