The very first day one of Metallica special until it sleeps touched my ear, it didn’t took much time go deeper and deeper of my heart. The pain inside the song, the power surrounding the music made itself a very special Metallica number for me like many other.
Being an obnoxious romantic person I always tried finding romance in all my favorite number and this one is no exception. Frankly speaking if you want to see romance you can find it anywhere. So the way I interpreted song is it’s like a cursed screech of an all lost lover.
Later I noticed Metallica hardly write on this sort of romance. Then I started digging the song and found quite a few view points from different critics and listeners. I selected them, which are based on fact. Let’s start with one by one.
Now consider the most popular gimmick. This song was written on the memory of James mother, who died in cancer. The reason of the popularity of this view is this was told by James Hetfield himself, the main lyricist (along with Ulrich) of this song and most of Metallica numbers. Fact tells that James belong to a strict Christian Scientist family. His father, grandfather, mother all died in cancer. But in the faith that Good God will take care of their pain, disease they refused to take any medical treatment even in the verge of death. Very sad & touchy fact, but lets try to synchronize this fact with the lyrics. Take a look at first 3 stanzas,
Where do I take this pain of mine?
I run but it stays right by my side
So tear me open and pour me out
There's things inside that scream and shout
And the pain still hates me
So hold me until it sleeps
Just like the curse, just like the stray
You feed it once and now it stays
Now it stays
As we can see it perfectly goes with the above said fact. If you close your eyes you can imagine the picture a dying mother suffering from immense pain but not ready to take medical cures, and the little son doing nothing but staring at her. Probably you can picture the untold pain running through the vein of a boy of age 16.
But what happened to the other part of the lyrics?
So tear me open but beware
There's things inside without a care
And the dirt still stains me
So wash me until I'm clean
It grips you so hold me
It stains you so hold me
It hates you so hold me
It holds you so hold me
Until it sleeps
So tell me why you've chosen me
Don't want your grip, don't want your greed
Don't want it
I'll tear me open make you gone
No more can you hurt anyone
And the fear still shakes me
So hold me, until it sleeps
Can you find much correlation with dying mother and this part of lyrics? I couldn’t. Yes, one relation can be made that James is annoyed with good God and screaming in frustration, “Don't want your grip, don't want your greed” or “I'll tear me open make you gone” but from a religious person like James it’s not much likely.
Here comes the next well-known rationalization of ‘until it sleeps’.
Addiction, after and before pains of addiction, schizophrenic mental state… During the recording of the St. Anger album (2002–2003), Hetfield himself went into rehab to get rid of his alcohol addiction but this song was written long back. And another fact is in the early days of Metallica (before Kirk join Metallica), James had quite a big argument with that times guitarist Mustaine regarding Mustaine’s alcoholism. So rest of the Metallica, specially James and Lars decided to cover their path without Mustaine. And literally kicked of Mustaine from Metallica, even that was quoted by Mustaine in later days that he was pretty astonished that Metallica didn’t send him for rehab instead they kicked him off. So it doesn’t look that addiction and pain related addiction really put such a wide scar in James’s mind so that he can go and create until it sleeps. Yes, its true that each and every line of the song can be related with the theme of addiction and related pain, specially “I run but it stays right by my side” or “Just like the curse, just like the stray/ You feed it once and now it stays” or “So wash me until I'm clean”. But looking into the real life prospective it’s hard to find a real link between the song and Metallica.
Now if you go little deeper then its not really that tough to figure out a Metallica trend is to use popular children song or story in their song lyrics. Remember Enter Sandman and try to relate with Neverneverland (Peter Pan). Relate The House Jack Built with the nursery rhyme of the same title, Where the Wild Things Are with the story of the same name. Now take a look at the line "So tear me open, pour me out...” is it really tough to find a loose connection with "I'm A Little Teapot"??? Now if this is the correct way of thinking then it can be assume that it’s a scream of a person who missed his normal childhood due to harsh background. James’s father left her mother in early days; he belongs to a strict Christian family, his mother died in cancer without a dope of medicine… So, at least in my eyes it’s the most realistic rationalization of ‘until it sleeps’, but only before I came to know some maddening facts.
Piracy… dose not fit with the name of Metallica, right? Take a look at Asian-Italian-American artist Goff Macaraeg's video Garden of Eden seen on MTV Asia in 1996. Metallica saw Garden of Eden at MTV Asia studios in Singapore by a VJ friend, months before they got the ideas for Until It Sleeps and LOAD, trite image, concept and melody and almost everything. Even Macaraeg's name was written in Metallica video for Until It Sleeps. In this context Until It Sleeps refers to Metallica's notion that Macaraeg was questioning the divinity of Christ in his video. And really, what do the words “and the hate still shames me” have to do with cancer? Metallica never wrote anything about their family in any of Metallica number so there is no reason for an exception. As well as looking at the video, above all rationalization sound crap… neither family, nor abused child hood, nor addiction. As soon as the video of “until it sleeps” comes out, they were questioned and they had to tell something to media… so why not a touchy story of mothers cancer? And the funniest thing is that, during the inauguration of the video on MTV, When asked by the VJ what the video was about, Jason Newsted and James answered, "that's what we're wondering, what is it?" It's up for you to decide or who are you to decide." Did they forget James mother at that time??? Unfortunately that time internet was just spreading and being a beneficial and favorite darling of MTV, Metallica and until it sleep keep roaring its popularity without a stain.
The entire band was embarrassed at the 1996 MTV music video awards about their award winning video being stolen from another artist. In fact David Lee Roth, speaking at the awards spilled the beans on Metallica that.
Open your minds for this one because it’s deeper than your imagination. Macaraeg's video filmed in 1994 but conceptualized in 1992, was about The Da Vinci Code, a decade before Dan Brown published his book. This same subject matter is what Metallica learned after previewing Macaraeg's video first hand, frame by frame on a video editor based on subliminal words and images they saw in his video and could only be seen with a good tape machine copy, which they were provided by MTV Asia studios' VJ Danny McGill, a close friend of Kirk Hammett's. Hammett was in Singapore in March of 1996 to visit McGill and MTV Asia while Macaraeg's video was on rotation and in the vaults of that very same studio as it was the only MTV studio and first in Asia in the early to mid 90's. Since Metallica had writer's block and were shooting blanks for years before this, they were at a loss for a concept and a direction. Not until they were shown Macaraeg's Garden of Eden, did they make a connection. Their director Samuel Bayer is also known for stealing images and concepts from other artist's videos unknown to most music video fans. The two together and a bundle of money made Until It Sleeps, and they scrambled to do it in the months following March 1996, but not without first seeing Macaraeg's. Until this day Metallica will not admit this although judging by the way they acted on stage at the 1996 VMA's you can tell something was seriously wrong. Their "thank you" was surreptitious and they acted unnerved, guilty and weird. And in their MTV interview they readily admitted, they were "lying about the record."
Reference:
To make the claim that Metallica not only stole Goff Macaraeg's video concept, but addressed this whole "conspiracy" in their lyrics is going way too far. Sorry to say, but the whole situation doesn't add up. The information from those Youtube videos seems botched and from a vague perspective. One thing that jumped at me right away was how Goff was merely referred to as an "MTV Asia Artist", and not the lead singer/guitarist of RP, known for the albums "Street Legal" and "Strange Storms" in the mid to late 80s. In the original 1996 report regarding the videos, his demeanor doesn't come off as threatening to sue. In fact, he simply states the obvious similarities in a grounded, almost humbled manner. Quite a half-baked news story if I say so myself. Why Metallica stated they were "lying about the record", I have no idea. That seems to be a part of their ego, assuming they can say anything brusque or outlandish on another country's programming. They wouldn't be like that on American TV, I'll tell you that much.
ReplyDeleteMy second point: The Youtube posting titled "UNTIL IT SLEEPS-THE MEANING BEHIND THE VIDEO" shows part of the "Garden of Eden" video, the song of which was recorded two years before, in 1992.
The main issue here is the claim that Metallica lifted Goff's arrangement too. Yes, the main chord progression for "Garden of Eden" is Am, Fmaj Gmaj, while "Until it Sleeps" is half a step down, with the latter two chords swapped, but that's beside the point. The real focus is the song itself. Now I'm not one to denigrate Goff's merit by any stretch, but by comparison (and by Filipino music standards of the time) the song is very dated--borderline pop metal. It's quite a basic song about lust. Any fan of Metallica is familiar with their abhorrence of anything 'glam themed', so why would they ever think of blatantly copying the song's riffs?
My final point: The full video and song of Garden of Eden, let alone the album "Deus Ex Machina" is nowhere to be found. Why? Perhaps it was completely eclipsed by this red herring of a case. It's really a shame.
Anyway, I know this comment is 5 years too late, but I simply want to clarify my findings. I sincerely hope I've helped in some way, and that this lost RP gem is rediscovered soon enough.
I know this is also late as hell but i too hope that the full song is found
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