The Music Court

My entire morning so far has been devoted to thinking how I was going to construct this segment. Today’s lyricist #90 is an interesting figure that alot of people respect and an almost equal amount of people do not like. Personally, I like him. His lyrics are different, depressing, and real. His lyrics were the basis of the premier 1980’s Metal Band that shot the hearts of tons of listeners and brought a new type of metal to the states. His band was aptly named Metallica, and he is James Hetfield.

Metallica, and no one can dispute this, was an amazing band in the 1980’s. Their albums were tremendous and their music was pounding rock, raw, and oddly melodic and wonderful. After their 1991 release of Metallica (The Black Album) which featured the iconic “Enter Sandman,” thoughts on the worth of Metallica started to dwindle. Yet, we are not here to discuss Metallica, the band. We are only about the lyric, man, and today’s segment will focus on James Hetfield and why he lyrics are worth #90 recognition

Pro (Good Metallica)

My suitemate came in a few minutes ago and asked, “How is James Hetfield  over a guy like Josh Ritter.” To a degree, he has a good point. Ritter’s lyrics are oddly creative and aesthetically beautiful. He is singing about love and religious wars (as much as that sounds intense he mentions such lines as her eyes are like champagne). Hetfield is not. In the two songs that we will explore today he is singing about a mental asylum and the darker side to the evils of war. This makes the song obviously more metal and that is Hetfield’s genre of music. His songs have also spanned numerous succesful albums and his lyrics have been the top source for Metal lyrics for over two decades. If it is not only because of span of work, it is also because Hetfield’s lyrics are also quite raw and true with a large amount of feeling pasted into the underlying message of both songs. Let us look at two songs. First we will start with the always depressing, “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” which appeared on Metallica’s 1986 release Master of Puppets, and that is aptly based on the Ken Kesey novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

“Welcome to where time stands still
no one leaves and no one will
Moon is full, never seems to change
just labeled mentally deranged
Dream the same thing every night
I see our freedom in my sight
No locked doors, No windows barred
No things to make my brain seem scarred”

So, you read them and hopefully are not thoroughly depressed. What do you think? In a complete over-analysis of the segment of lyrics above I particularly enjoy Hetfield’s word use. The moon never seems to changed and is labeled mentally deranged. This, most likely, is a comment on the patients in the mental asylum. They are labeled as an unchanging mass and, even though on the surface people try to treat them, they cannot field any treatment because they are prevented from accessing any freedom. When they do get a little of the real world they tend to get better (as Kesey points out so eloquently with strippers and fishing trips.) Freedom may be in sight in the lyric, but that is surely through death.

Next we have another song from the 1980’s, this one released two years earlier in 1984 with Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. It is entitled, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and is based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same name.

“Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now the will see what will be, blinded eyes to see”

This lyric is beyond depressing, but in reason. It needs to be because it is about dying in war. Blinded eyes, shattered goal, ruthless cry, blackened roar. All descriptions of destruction and hellish states. And, they are quite vivid and miserable descriptions, which is what makes Hetfield great. He is ruthless in his lyric but is also true and feels. Definitely worth #90.

“Welcome Home”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WElvEZj0Ltw

“For Whom the Bell Tolls”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX-KjkdDozQ&feature=related

In 1987, the year that the Twinkies from Minnesota won the world series despite only winning 85 games in the regular season, John Hiatt hit some long-awaited success with his February released album entitled Bring The Family. Hiatt and a backing band that consisted of such musicians as Ry Cooder (ranked the 8th best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone), Nick Lowe (of punk rock fame), and Jim Keltner (a session drummer who worked with different Beatles on their solo projects), hit the charts with numerous hits and propelled Hiatt to a following nine albums on the Billboard top 200 charts. Now, I am sure some of you may be thinking who the heck is John Hiatt and how did he compile such a band. Well, what if I was to tell you that he is a recipient of the 2008 AMA Lifetime Achievement Award in Songwriting and that his songs have been covered by too many artists to list on this post. How did he compile the band? Well, the band was surely excited to have the oppurtunity to play with a legend.

Hiatt, similar to a guy like Bob Dylan, has played numerous different styles of music. Another performer who decided not to find his own niche. He has explored New Wave, Country, and Blues. Possibly, because he could not settle into a style, he has been under appreciated by the masses. I am sure many of you have not heard a song performed by him but have heard songs written by him and performed by other artists. He is one musician who is simply respected by all musicians and therefore has been honored with several Grammy nominations and a stockpile of awards from the music industry.

http://www.webhostingpal.com/jdv/html/covers.htm  Copy that website into your browser (well open up a new Tab first) and go to it. Yes, right now. Take a look off to the right. See that tremendous list. Those are all his songs that have been covered by other artists. Understand now why so many people in the business respect. Heck, most of them have performed one of his songs.

Hiatt, after a rough childhood (his brother committed suicide at the age of 21 and his father died two years later after a long sickness) turned to Elvis and Dylan and the Blues for some relief. He picked up the guitar at 11 years old and started his music career as a teenager. At eighteen he got a job in Nashville, Tennessee as a songwriter. Yet, since he could not read scores, he was forced to record over 250 songs for the company. His body of work is huge.

I believe the best way to describe his lyrical prowess would be through taking his two most covered songs and exploring what makes the lyrics so great. “Feels Like Rain,” off of his 1988 album Slow Turning has been covered by eight musicians, including the great Buddy Guy and “Have a Little Faith in Me,” off of his 1987 album Bring in the Family has been covered by eighteen (EIGHTEEN) artists including Joe Cocker and Kenny Rogers.

In “Feels Like Rain,” I particularly like the end of the song which chronicles two lovers in a rain storm. It is kind of similar to everyone’s favorite Christmas rape song “Baby it’s Cold Outside,” but this actually is pretty loving. The lyrics are below:

We’ll never make that bridge tonight

Across lake Ponchartrain

Feel like rain

Batten down the hatches

But keep your heart out on your sleeve

A little bit of stormy weather, that’s no cause for us to leave

Just stay here baby, in my arms

Let it wash away the pain

I love the beautifuly symbolism of the rain washing away any heart ache. It also represents love which comes out of nowhere. The song mentions that love comes like a Hurricane and while these things do past what can stay the same is his love staying with him through all the rain.

“Have a Little Faith in Me,” is a similar concept on love

“Have a little faith in me

When your secret heart

Cannot speak so easily

Come here darlin’

From a whisper start

To have a little faith in me

And when your back’s against the wall

Just turn around and you will see

I will catch, I will catch your fall baby

Just have a little faith in me”

Here the simple message is have some faith in me and we can have a stable love. A stable love for a stable musician whose work just continues to get larger and better as the years go on.

“Have A Little Faith in Me”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UkKTlzyLhQ

“Feels Like Rain”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTUTKkxw94A