Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
You crack me up hahaha!
Oh man, I had fake lyric stanzas and everything about how "it's been too long, since we wrote this song, so what if Beholder had a son?" Silly times.
Love the deep dive for the track, and I had no clue about those lyrics resurfacing in this form.
While we're on the subject, I want to praise the lyrics for somehow making the title less dumb (I was jokingly miscalling it "The Dark Side of the Sun" before =). Also, the "unforgiven" lyric I mentioned above is a lot better than it might seem as a lazy self-reference because Unforgiven is the song most about James, so for him to refer to "the unforgiven misbehaving" is somewhat confessional and both uses that sympathetic designation but turns it around as if to say it's not all one-sided. Like I said, between relapsing, his family falling apart, and the concept they've laid out, the lyrical content of this album hopefully promises to be a lot more meaningful than pastiches about mythological monsters or machine death. I guess I'll go ahead and just post the previous video they released for Screaming Suicide here, which was certainly lyrically inspired by something James said at a show or vice versa:
This one's probably the least reminiscent of a specific previous song, maybe Prince Charming, but it's more like some Reload riffs in a more metal-than-rock presentation, arguably.
I agree on what you said about how this compares to something like a Death Magnetic. This direction is pretty straightforward/ basic and another example is how similar it is structurally with I Disappear (not the riffs but what it's trying to do). Ironically, I prefer this new song 1.25 x times faster and I can't unhear it at that speed.
The reason I'm comparing it to the black album and the Loads is because that's when, especially on the black album, they sort of distilled their songwriting and sound up to that point into what was, certainly a more commercially potent form (still the best selling album of the modern era!), but by that token also genuinely popular and extremely accessible across the board. Anecdotally, Metallica songs being poorly played on instruments throughout music stores was ubiquitous during my adolecence, the contemporary equivalent of, "No Stairway to Heaven, please!" Anyway, while this album won't do anything like that, it might not even be #1 its first week of sales, though I'd be willing to bet it sells the most physical copies of any album this year, it could basically serve the same creative function of taking the evolution of their musical enterprise the last 10-20 years and boiling it down to a more streamlined and essential songwriting and listening experience, and preferably well within their current range and comfort zone. That's my hope anyway.
Tempted to share some music with you to check out (perhaps more downtuned/ a different chug/ etc) ... TEMPTATION! ..... TEMPTATION!!
My favorite interpretation of that lyric: "Temptation to like Megadeth is so strong... don't do it!"
Final Metallica nerd facts: Overanalyzing these singles compared to the rollout of the last album, they've released the 6th, 3rd, and 8th tracks respectively. Traditionally not the strongest or featured tracks "anchoring" your typical Metallica album. Whereas for Hardwired it was the 1st, 4th, and 2nd, which are typically the most important if not best tracks, at least as far as the band presents them. So, there's a possibility they're pulling their punches and we haven't heard the best they have to offer yet. It's also early enough before release, I wasn't expecting this third single until at least mid-march, that it wouldn't surprise me if they put out another, most likely the opening title track, but maybe the aforementioned 2nd or 4th, before the album drops.
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