And just like that he ruined it…The most important lyrics of the song and he talks over it 
This song is about the pain of losing to Jethro Tull at the Grammy’s. Absolute Horror.
this song live is more powerful
Hrvester of Sorrow…
The injuries suffered by “Johnny” in the book, and film were, both legs and arms blown off, his face completely mangled, making it impossible for him to speak, see, or even hear. The mask on his “face” in the film is to conceal the fact that he has no face left. His nutrition and air are supplied by tubes. When he is saying “I don’t know if I’m alive and dreaming, or dead and remembering” it is because he is surrounded by silence at all times.
Jake, how can you not know this song inside out?! (ABR rules, btw. )
I remember the first time I saw this video. A few buddies and I met these girls at a party, and brought them home. We popped on “Headbanger’s Ball” on MTV, you know - when they did music. Anyways, this totally killed the evening. It was amazing, but there was no hooking up after that.
James Hetfield still owes me for this.
i am in love…
Should watch the movie, it’s powerful. A nurse opens the curtains so he can feel the sun and he start tracking the days. She writes Merry Christmas with her finger on his chest.
This is one of my favorite songs from my favorite band and I’ve never really related this song to my chronic illness before until I watched this. Darkness imprisoning me. Nothing is real but pain now. Trapped in myself. Body my holding cell. Living a life in hell.
i remember thinking this was the single greatest metal song of all time when it first came out. This was the next Stairway To Heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody. My memory is the grammys opened up a heavy metal award due to the popularity of Metallica and this song specifically. the year this was nominated for the award, the first award for a heavy metal category, Metallica played this live for the show. I was a HS kid that did not watch award shows, but I was watching this one due to Metallica. When the award was announced, the powers that be snubbed Metallica and gave the award for best heavy metal song, the first grammy ever for this category… to Jethro Tull, lol. The outcry was over the top. It pretty much proved to everyone that these things were rigged at worse, unfair at best. To this day, I’ve not watched the grammys since then.
This video was not only Metallica’s first, it was also quite revolutionary in its inclusion of a classic film into its narrative. The song was based on James’ viewing of ‘Johnny Got His Gun’, so it all fits. This was the first 'Tallica album I bought (it was 1988), and I saw them perform this song twice on the Damaged Justice Tour ('88-'89). So powerful, even to this day. We Gen-X kids grew up with the very present shadow of all-consuming warfare in the form of nuclear apocalypse looming over us. Metallica, along with other pioneering metal bands, gave some of us an outlet for our anger, fear and sadness. Therapy was not much of a thing in those days, so most of us found it (thankfully) via outlets such as music. Stay metal!
You should check out Queensryche “Eyes of a Stranger” from the album “Operation Mindcrime.” That entire album is a single story and it is amazing.
Metallica used metal to be the biggest hippies of all time, the amount of anti war propaganda that Metallica has done is fucking awesome. Metal has always had the ability to play with darkness to increase the light, nothing is more anti war than showing the results of it. They historically have always been about “fuck the man” and I love our Bay Area attitude
Metallica has a few unique musical and lyrical signatures that are present in pretty much every one of their songs. One of those signatures is that they always change one word of the chorus at the end of the song, and in this song they changed “wake me” to “save me”. Being a therapist you will really appreciate the implication of this tiny word change. By saying “wake me” he was in denial. At the end of the song, by saying “save me” he was in acceptance. Accepting the fate that he was not getting out of his situation and he wanted to be saved spiritually. Too bad that Metallica lost it after the black album.
I can’t watch this without teary eyes at the end…
One does not simply walk into Mordor and talk over Landmines
This was the first video metallica ever did . They had refused to do any for the three albums before this one.
0:14 Sorry, that’s not “War in the background”. That’s war… F*ing war. Don’t let it ever happen! And read the book “Johnny got his gun” from Dalton Trumbo! Much more intense than this music video could ever be. And damn! It is very close. It’s disturbingly good and awful.
You need to react to Suicidal Tendencies ,
Institutionalized! Around the same time frame. S.T. and Metallica have saved me more times than I can count. Still do. Started listening to them both around 86 when i was a young teen. Music saves 