The Metallica song James Hetfield used to reflect on childhood trauma
Picking up threads left by metal innovators like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Deep Purple, Metallica wove a brand new patch on the musical tapestry in the 1980s. After establishing the thrash metal subgenre, the West Coast four-piece quickly gained the reputation associated with most classic rock bands: one of hedonism, egotism and excess. As Metallica’s leader, vocalist and rhythm guitarist, James Hetfield upholds a strong, uncompromising persona, but is this just a facade?
Hetfield’s rhythm guitar style is central to the thrash metal sound Metallica pioneered. Since the genre is, like electronic music, focused on affecting soundscapes, the lyrics are all too often overlooked. After all, fans flock to metal gigs to feel the bass rattling in their ribcages and bang their heads to the beat. In metal, the emotions expressed in the cadence and projection of the singer’s voice are often of more importance than the meaning of the words themselves.
During a Q&A event hosted by Lars Ulrich in 2016, Hetfield discussed his lyrics, many of which have become legendary for their aggressive delivery and emotional messages. “Uh… I listen to Hair Metal, that makes me angry, so…,” Hetfield laughed when asked what inspires him to write. “It comes from anywhere, a line from a movie, listening to talk radio, its kind of anywhere really, reading stuff. As far as lyricists go, I mean, there are some that I really admire and like to tap into.”
As he suggests, Hetfield subscribes to a modern approach wherein he can find lyrical inspiration anywhere. Like a metallic William S. Burroughs, he soaks in ideas and rearranges them to fit Metallica’s unique rhythm, both conceptually and musically. This approach works well for metal and for Hetfield. However, he is envious of writers from other domains. “I just wish that I could be as good as Tom Waits, Phil Lynott, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, a lot of great lyricists,” he added. “It is really cool to read up on them and hear how they come up with their stuff.”
Following Metallica’s surge to global fame with seminal releases like Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets in the 1980s, Hetfield began to diversify his songwriting approach. In 1996, reflecting on the recent success of Load, the singer told Guitar World how he had been trying to channel some of his more bookish songwriting heroes. “I’ve been really focusing on lyricists — as opposed to people who just sit down and crank out some words for a song — who write fucking poems and then put music to them.”
The songwriters Hetfield began to welcome into his library would generally thrive on poetic verse with deep personal resonance. “I wanted to understand other people’s ideas about how to write lyrics,” Hetfield added. “Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads are the coolest, and I dig all the Tom Waits stuff. I‘ve even listened to some Leonard Cohen. I mean, I hate the fucking music, but his lyrics are very cool. You do a lot more ‘acting’ with your singing.”
A more reflective and conceptual side to Hetfield’s writing began to emerge in Metallica’s self-titled album of 1991. The record is best known for the lead single ‘Enter Sandman’. In the lyrics, Hetfield explores the theme of childhood fear in a nightmarish night’s sleep for the protagonist. Elsewhere in the album, the singer suggests the child is his earlier self as he documents trauma from his childhood.
In ‘The God That Failed’, Hetfield returns to the crux of his childhood woes: religion. Born in 1963, Hetfield grew up during a strange time for Christianity. As much of the Western world began to subside to agnosticism with the advance of science, technology and counterculture, some modern sects established as religious strongholds, especially in parts of the US.
Hetfield’s family were very strict Christian Scientists who disapproved of conventional medical practice. Hence, when Hetfield’s mother, Cynthia Bassett, was dying of cancer in the late 1970s, the family trusted religion for salvation. Sadly, she passed away in 1980 when Hetfield was 16. “It was very alienating for me as a child, being raised in this religion and how I couldn’t attend certain health classes at school,” he later reflected. “They’d get their health books out, and I wasn’t supposed to learn about the body because ‘this is just a shell for your soul’ and all of this.”
In ‘The God That Failed’, Hetfield candidly returned to the uncomfortable topic of his mother’s demise and the role of misplaced belief in his childhood trauma. “I hear faith in your cries / Broken is the promise, betrayal / The healing hand held back by the deepened nail / Follow the god that failed”.
The song and much of the adjacent material in the so-called Black Album heard Hetfield with a newfound strength. From a new level of maturity, he could reflect on past demons. Music had always been of great release and comfort to him, but in the 1990s, he began to use it as a tool of cathartic reflection. “Music was the voice I didn’t have,” Hetfield summarised. “I was pretty much afraid of everything… afraid of the world, afraid of speaking. [I was a] really, really shy kid. Music was a way to speak.”
