The song James Hetfield called a “big step” for Metallica
Although Metallica went mainstream with 1991’s self-titled album, the seeds for them earning such widespread success originated years prior, when they were firmly at the forefront of the thrash metal tidal wave. The band had always cut a different image from the other leaders of the movement, Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer, and it was they who showed a tender side first, opening the genre up to a healthy future.
While the other bands of the ‘Big Four’ were mostly concerned with politics and darker, much more typically metal subjects such as hell and purgatory, Metallica were the first outfit to step out from the shadows of the genre and emotionally open up. This meant that in their influential outwardly thrash period of the mid-1980s, they always had a deeper resonance than their musical brothers-in-arms.
The road to ballads such as ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and later tracks in a more emotional, frank vein started with ‘Fade to Black’ from 1984’s Ride the Lightning. Although the song features wailing solos and overdriven guitar, it was also the moment that they first used the acoustic guitar, an instrument that had long been the antithesis of metal, given its musical and spiritual tradition as the primary weapon of singer-songwriters and folkies.
Not only did the song produce ample atmosphere with the opening chimes of the acoustic, but thematically, it broke from tradition in that James Hetfield discussed his feelings of depression. It was, in his own words, “a big step” for the band and, by extension, metal itself. It represented a metal group defying tradition.
Speaking to Guitar World in 2009, Hetfield explained: “That song was a big step for us. It was pretty much our first ballad, so it was challenging and we knew it would freak people out. Bands like Exodus and Slayer don’t do ballads, but they’ve stuck themselves in that position which is something we never wanted to do; limiting yourself to please your audience is bullshit.”
Not only did he learn how tricky recording with the acoustic guitar can be, in that you cannot mask the squeaks of the strings, but he also describes it as “a suicide song”. The frontman revealed that he was in a pit of depression at the time because the band’s gear truck had been broken into and their equipment had been stolen, including his favourite Marshall amp. Exacerbating things, they’d also been thrown out of their manager’s house for tearing it up and draining his drinks cabinet.
These two things, and a more general, morbid obsession with death, fed into the bleak track, which features lines such as “I have lost the will to live / Simply nothing more to give / There is nothing more for me / Need the end to set me free”.
Given the spirit of the time, which saw conservative America hit out at artists for including such stark themes in their music, leading to Tipper Gore forming the notorious Parents Music Resource Center in 1985, the band invited much criticism for the lyrics.
Despite the hate, though, ‘Fade to Black’ was a success. Not only was it one of the only tracks from this era to receive radio play, but the group received hundreds of letters from young fans informing them that it had provided a ray of light that they found solace in. From that moment on, Metallica knew it was worth exploring human themes further. The likes of ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘One’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’ were on the horizon.
