Suit Over Suicide Is Tossed Out : No Proof That Rock Music Lyrics Led to It, Judge Says

A family’s lawsuit claiming their son shot himself to death while listening to rock singer Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Suicide Solution” was thrown out of court Thursday by a judge who ruled there was no proof that the lyrics were intended to elicit a suicidal response.

But Superior Court Judge John L. Cole said he would consider a new claim by the family that a “low-pitched hum” on the record, perceptible only to the subconscious mind, may have lowered the teen-ager’s resistance to suggestions in the lyrics.

Thomas T. Anderson, attorney for the family of John McCollum, said he has evidence from experts that an 11-kilohertz hum on several of Osbourne’s records--audible as the sound of a bass guitar only when heard during live concerts or through stereo headphones--causes the listener to be “peculiarly inclined to follow suggestions” in the lyrics.

McCollum, a 19-year-old Indio youth with a history of drinking problems, shot himself in the head in 1984 after listening with stereo headphones to Osbourne’s “Blizzard of Oz” and “Diary of a Madman” albums repeatedly over a five-hour period.

In their lawsuit against Osbourne and CBS Records, his parents, Jack McCollum and Geraldine Lugenbuehl, claim the “preoccupation with death” and the “despair and hopelessness” in Osbourne’s music prompted their son to kill himself.

“John acted as the music directed him to act,” the family alleged in court papers. “Ultimately, the listener here became the victim. The music produced John’s death, first by working him into a frenzied state, and ultimately by sending him over the brink into the abyss of death.”

But Cole ruled that First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression protect the album lyrics from any such challenges--particularly since there was no evidence presented that the music specifically incited its listeners to commit suicide.

“As to this low-frequency hum,” he said, “here we start to approach with some degree of directness the shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-type situation,” although the judge added that he remained “very dubious” about the assertions.

Osbourne has said the song, “Suicide Solution,” is actually an anti-suicide song inspired by a friend who drank himself to death.