Houston Calling

Give the Gift of Therapy

August 15th, 2003 · No Comments

I watched the Classic Albums program on VH1 last night. The show featured Metallica‘s Black album, which was released in 1991 and blew the band into the mainstream. It’s an album that I have loved since it was first released and is an album that many of the band’s die-hard fans didn’t like. The fact that the band was in heavy rotation on MTV, was winning Grammys, and that seemingly everyone was suddenly a Metallica fan frustrated the band’s older fans.

But the album sold millions (I think it said the album went double platinum in two weeks) and solidified Metallica as rock stars. The band toured the world for two years in support of the album.

I always like documentaries on musicians so I watched the show with great interest. Watching producer Bob Rock and Metallica frontman James Hetfield discuss the making of the album (which I have seen in the DVD, A Year and a Half…) gave me some insight into how Metallica made the jump from being speed metal masters to huge metal rock stars.

It also let me know why their latest album, St. Anger, sounds like it does. For this album, Metallica didn’t come into the studio with songs ready to play and hone–they practiced, jammed, and recorded the songs for St. Anger in their studio/rehearsal space. And it shows. That is exactly what it sounds like–an overpriced, over-produced demo.

But what I was most amazed about while watching the show was how brainwashed Hetfield seems to be. Almost every sentence he said had something to do with the fact that he is in therapy–much like the songs on St. Anger. It was painful to watch at times, and hearing him talk about childhood issues, self-loathing, and substance abuse made me long for young Metallica.

Rock said that the lyrics on the Black album were Hetfield’s “cry for help” and that it took him 10 more years before he finally was able to get that help.

But I was especially taken aback when Hetfield said that therapy is “a gift I was blessed with.”

A gift?

Seriously?

Basically, what I learned is the Black album was Metallica’s first step in their process of maturing. Not just as a band, but as individuals. Hetfield said that humans have to progress, and I got the impression that the albums they recorded after 1991 (Load, Reload, St. Anger) have been the band progressing in its own way. Their lyrics on the Black album began a trend of heartfelt, soul-searching songs that carried on, for the most part, throughout their albums in the 90s.

I learned that the lyrics to Metallica’s ballad (the song that really got their old fans upset), “And Nothing Else Matters,” were written to Hetfield’s girlfriend at the time and he played it to the other band members just so they could hear it, never thinking it would be on the album. I assume the band’s record label and Rock had something to do with it making the album and getting the push that it did, which futher alienated the band’s hardcore fanbase.

But, other than the therapy comment, I was most shocked to learn that the song “Sad But True” was a song Hetfield wrote about addiction. I always assumed it was about a woman or his parents–something in his past. I always
liked the biting lyrics his angry delivery. It gave me chills this morning listening to it for the first time with the new knowledge of what he was writing about.

“Hey
I’m your life
I’m the one who takes you there
I’m your life
I’m the one who cares
they
they betray
I’m your only true friend now
they
they’ll betray
I’m forever there

I’m your dream, make you real
I’m your eyes when you must steal
I’m your pain when you can’t feel
sad but true
I’m your dream, mind astray
I’m your eyes while you’re away
I’m your pain while you repay
you know it’s sad but true

you
you’re my mask
you’re my cover, my shelter
you
you’re my mask
you’re the one who’s blamed
do
do my work
do my dirty work, scapegoat
do
do my deeds
for you’re the one who’s shamed

I’m your dream, make you real
I’m your eyes when you must steal
I’m your pain when you can’t feel
sad but true
I’m your dream, mind astray
I’m your eyes while you’re away
I’m your pain while you repay
you know it’s sad but true

hate
I’m your hate
I’m your hate when you want love
pay
pay the price
pay, for nothing’s fair
hey
I’m your life
I’m the one who took you here
hey
I’m your life
and I no longer care

I’m your dream, make you real
I’m your eyes when you must steal
I’m your pain when you can’t feel
sad but true
I’m your truth, telling lies
I’m your reasoned alibis
I’m inside open your eyes
I’m you
sad but true”

Obviously Hetfield has his issues, and I won’t make fun of his need of therapy. I am glad he’s getting help if he needs it. To each his own. But I cannot get over the fact of how brainwashed he sounds now–like there’s no middle ground for him. It’s either mad at the world or peaceful and brainwashed.

If his words have always been an indication of what he is feeling or are cries for help, I fear that we may never again get a Metallica album that has songs with lyrics that we can relate to or we can care about in any way.

I knew people back in high school whose parents sent them to institutions for whatever problems they might have had–real or imagined–and songs like “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” or Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized” were anthems people could grab onto and which perhaps helped them escape whatever it was they were dealing with at the time.

I doubt anyone but his AA sponsor is going to relate to a line like, “My lifestyle determines my death style…” or “…I need to set my anger free.”

Maybe because I find the lyrics on St. Anger so trite and the lyrics (for the most part) on their other albums so good, I am just finding something to pick on. I really like Metallica–I liked Load, I liked the Black album, and of course, liked the older albums. But St. Anger disappointed me.

And I was disappointed to come to the realization last night that I may never again get to hear new Metallica songs that I actually enjoy.

Now Playing in My iPOD: Metallica — “Fade to Black”

Tags: Music