If business or pleasure ever brings you to a McDonald’s in the Southwest English county of Gloucestershire, you may recognize the dulcet sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach or Frédéric Chopin playing overhead late into the evening. The classical music soundtrack is not necessarily to provide a soothing aural backdrop to your Filet-O-Fish and 20-piece Chicken McNugget, however. It is intended, according to Gloucestershire Live, to stop drunks from beating the shit out of each other in the restaurant.
So far, the ploy has been deemed a success. A McDonald’s spokesperson told the publication: “We have tested the effects of classical music in the past and played it in some of our restaurants as it encourages more acceptable behavior.”
Gloucestershire-area franchises aren’t the first to tackle this, as McDonald’s in Liverpool and Manchester have also employed classical music as a way to deter unruly behavior. Using music to combat rowdiness has been an unconventional tactic showing mixed results in recent years: The mayor of the Australian town of Rockdale blasted Barry Manilow and Doris Day to prevent loiterers hanging in a parking lot, and the FBI blasted Tibetan monk chants, Andy Williams, and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking” in an effort to root out David Koresh and his followers in his Branch Davidian compound.
May we suggest 10 hours of the “Careless Whisper” saxophone hook on a loop?