Music

Watch this 82-year-old man sing Drowning Pool's 'Bodies'

by Jeremy Mersereau

Pop quiz: when a khaki-loving octogenarian steps out onstage to sing, what do you expect to hear? “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”? Some Jimmy Dorsey? Well, if the person in question is retired aerospace engineer and Navy pilot John Hetlinger, you get 2002 hit and enhanced interrogation tool “Bodies”, by nu-metal also-rans Drowning Pool.

Displaying a remarkable cultural awareness for someone of his age (not the song, the fact that he knew an old man singing nu metal would play like gangbusters), Hetlinger gamely shrieks and screams his way through Drowning Pool’s heavily-memed drop-D masterwork, immediately getting the audience onside and even earning the reluctant esteem of professional curmudgeon Simon Cowell.

PRODUCER IN EARPIECE: “Ok, Cowell, you know the drill. Put on that ‘begrudgingly respectful’ face and… hold it…”

Hetlinger’s clearly been honing his routine for awhile, waiting for just the right moment to unleash his version of the Extreme Championship Wrestling theme, as you can see here in this earlier practice run featuring his same trademark khakis:

“ONE! Nothing wrong with me! TWO! In the AARP!”