How WHITESNAKE's 'Here I Go Again' Inspired Guantanamo Bay Prisoner

December 15, 2015

Shaker Aamer, the last British resident of to be held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison, says that WHITESNAKE helped get him through his ordeal.

In his first interview since being released after a nearly 14-year stay and returning to his family in London in October, the 48-year-old said he was regularly beaten, doused in freezing water and hog-tied in the facility "built on how to destroy a human," according to NBC News. Getting pinched, having his eye poked and being made to listen to loud music —including WHITESNAKE's megahit "Here I Go Again" — were some examples he shared.

But Aamer, who was captured in Aghanistan in 2001 and transferred to Guantánamo in 2002, said that singing the lyrics to "Here I Go Again" actually helped him focus on the day he would finally be free.

He told the BBC: "I used to sing it a lot, because the words, I thought the words fitted me. The words makes me feel like, yeah, it's me again. 'Like a drifter I was born to walk alone, 'cause I know what it means to walk alone the lonely street of dreams.' And it's true because it's just dreams. Dreams that I would be home one day, dreams that I would be free, dreams that Guantanamo would be closed."

President Barack Obama has been trying to close the Guantanamo Bay prison since he came into office in 2009 but has been blocked from closing the facility, mainly by Congress's continued ban on transferring detainees to the U.S.

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