The 1984 Metallica song James Hetfield never wants to hear again: “The song that we never wanted to play live”
Over the course of their 40-year career, Metallica have rarely made a mistake. They have been at the forefront of heavy metal throughout this time, helping the genre reach new commercial heights without selling their souls along the way.
Although the metal icons have spent decades performing in huge stadiums worldwide, they’ve never attempted to appease the mainstream. Instead, Metallica has stayed true to its principles and rose to the top in its own unique fashion, making it the biggest underground band on the planet.
While their self-titled album is the best known from their back catalogue, their 1991 release was no fluke. They consistently achieved similar brilliance across many albums spanning decades, such as Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets. However, when they released the aforementioned album, Metallica were still finding their feet in the studio. It was only their second album, and although it helped advance the reputation of heavy metal, there is one grave error on the LP, according to the band’s singer, James Hetfield.
Even so, the album remains one of the defining releases of Metallica’s career. It marked a significant leap forward in songwriting ambition, proving the band could expand their sound without sacrificing the aggression and intensity that had earned them a devoted following.
Metallica fans could spend all day arguing about the band’s best record and never reach a consensus, but Ride The Lightning would certainly be involved in the conversation. While Hetfield is also of this persuasion, one major stumbling block dampens his view on the LP.
At the time of the song in question’s creation, Metallica believed they had finished recording Ride The Lightning and confidently thought they’d completed the project to the best of all their creative abilities. Much to their frustration, though, their label had other ideas and, out of the blue, demanded one more song. In a hurry, they thrashed out a new number in the studio, an effort which became ‘Escape’. While Metallica didn’t want it to appear on Ride The Lightning, they had little choice in the matter.
Despite the album’s running time exceeding 40 minutes, even without the inclusion of ‘Escape’, it would have contained only seven tracks. It’s understandable, then, why the label wanted Ride The Lightning to feature an additional song. Hetfield later explained their hurried approach with ‘Escape’, telling Ultimate Guitar: “It was the first time we wrote a song in the studio. I remember we had all the songs and Lars said, ‘They want us to record one more, they need one more for the album’.”
The frontman continued: “I was like, ‘You didn’t tell me that…’ So we had to write and it was really last-minute. So ‘Escape’ was one of those songs that was written in the studio.”
For many years, Metallica refused to acknowledge the existence of ‘Escape’. However, more than 10,000 days after its release, the heavy metal titans finally played the song live when they surprisingly included it in their set at the Orion Festival in 2012. While introducing the track, Hetfield shared his true feelings on ‘Escape’, telling the audience, “The song that we never wanted to play live, ever, is now on the setlist”.
This proved to be a one-off occurrence, and Metallica have never performed ‘Escape’ since. Guitarist Kirk Hammett later explained why, telling Rolling Stone: “When we played ‘Escape’ at the Orion Fest, we collectively agreed why we never play that song: It’s not really a great song to play live.”
He then elaborated on why ‘Escape’ doesn’t translate to a live setting, continuing, “It’s in the key of ‘A,’ like ‘The Call Of Ktulu’ and ‘Metal Militia,’ but the key of ‘A’ doesn’t really work well for us for some reason or another. Playing that song was more of a novelty than anything else, but we loved playing all the other songs.”
As Hammett’s comments show, Hetfield is not alone in holding a grudge against ‘Escape’ and wanting to erase the song from their back catalogue. Thankfully, the singer hasn’t let his contempt for material stop him from appreciating the magnificence of Ride The Lightning. In 2018, he told Newsweek it was his favourite Metallica album because it “was the first time we got to be part of it”.
Ultimately, Metallica’s records are intended to embody the same raw energy as their live performances, especially during the era when they made Ride The Lightning. For ‘Escape,’ they ditched their traditional songwriting methods and it backfired. While it was a betrayal to their gut instincts, the group were yet to be famous enough to defy their label’s demand.
In hindsight, the story of ‘Escape’ serves as an interesting footnote in Metallica’s evolution. It highlights the growing pains that accompanied their rise while also underlining why Ride The Lightning remains such a celebrated milestone in heavy metal history.
