I Do Not Like Mondays

Man, I do not like Mondays. So to refocus, here’s something I do like — from waaay back in the day.

This is “One” by Metallica. If by some chance you don’t know the band, it’s one of the most apt names a band ever had, telling you exactly what they’re all about and what genre of music this is.

It’s heavy metal, which Metallica helped to cultivate and define; basically, just hard rock with electric guitar sporting heavier, shredding distortion often along with rougher vocal styles. I would call “One” a moment of mastery in music of its kind, and you don’t really have to be a metal fan to appreciate it.

I wasn’t yet a teenager when this thing came out in 1988, and I was fully captivated by it. I’ll come back to that.

Something that strikes me now — and I hadn’t heard this song in some years — is how pretty it is. Huh?

Yes, it’s pretty. Listen: there’s a slightly ominous yet delicate intro that builds into a sort of song within a song at about 01:31 in. Note that the official video you can see on YouTube and the track released on the 1988 album are different, with a few seconds added to the video.

The premise and theme of “One” are dark, but it’s an interesting proposition. It’s a song written from the perspective of a soldier who’s been heavily wounded by a landmine. According to the song, he has lost his arms and legs, and taken such damage to his head that he can no longer see, hear or speak. The video also mentions he cannot smell, though that’s in added dialogue not present in the release track.

The idea is his body is nothing more than a “holding cell,” as the lyrics tell you, and this soldier now simply wants to be released — so much so that he struggles to hold his breath long enough to end the imprisonment.

That’s also the meaning of the song’s title, since the lyrics state the soldier’s perspective clearly: “Now the world is gone; I’m just one.”

Alright, that’s pretty dark, don’t let it deter you — it’s well outside the norms of typical songwriting. So what is the point of this song? I can’t speak for Metallica, but I always took it as a ferocious antiwar statement.

You also have to consider the album under which “One” was released, …And Justice for All. The cover art, which according to the album was a concept by lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich and designed by Stephen Gorman, shows a crumbling statue of Lady Justice being pulled down, her balance scale dumping U.S. dollars. Hetfield and Ulrich also wrote “One.”

There’s no escaping it: This album gives many cues it’s a political criticism of the United States, and possibly other nations. The album’s title, of course, is the closing line of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. I myself never questioned that, but I’ve had friends from other countries react strongly that it’s something along the lines of absurd indoctrination. It can be interesting to hear others’ perspectives.

If you haven’t recited it in a while or aren’t familiar, the pledge is:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America,
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation, under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.”

So to me, even as a kid, it seemed Metallica was criticizing the notion that the USA delivers justice for all. But exactly how or why they’re targeting that criticism is less clear.

For instance, both in the original release (which I still have) and the official video, the song opens with the sounds of machine gun fire and infantry advancing, followed by a few explosions — the video adds a bomb descent and larger explosion — and a left-to-right sweep of a helicopter leaving the area.

It sounds to me like a Bell UH-1 Iroquois chopper or “huey,” and along with the reference to a landmine, suggests the U.S.’s Vietnam or Korean wars. But the video introduces something entirely different, including scenes and select sound clips from the 1971 film, “Johnny Got His Gun,” based on a 1938 novel by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted in the 1940s as a suspected communist.

Metallica actually purchased the rights to that movie at some point, rather than continuing to pay royalties for footage included in the “One” video. But “Johnny Got His Gun” is about a World War I soldier who, just like in “One,” has been severely wounded and left trapped in a useless body — only by an artillery shell, not a landmine.

So when you look closer, “One” seems to be a statement against war more generally. The video strengthens that notion, opening with an excepted and edited line from “Johnny Got His Gun” where a boy asks his father, “What is democracy?” and the father replies, “It’s got something to do with young men killing each other, I believe.” Note also that the video, not surprisingly with its scenes depicting WWI, also includes references to Great Britain.

It’s almost like the song is criticizing any democracy that continually entails war, or maybe it is lamenting that reality.

“One” also contains a number of religious undertones and references. In the lyrics, there are multiple times when the damaged soldier asks God for help — and at each reference, the song notably shifts back into the “song within a song” I mentioned, feeling a little like a ray of light.

The video also includes a clip from the “Johnny Got His Gun” film where the boy asks his father about war: “When it comes my turn, will you want me to go?”

The father, even though he doesn’t quite know and grasp what “democracy” is, tells the boy, “For democracy, any man would give his only begotten son.” That is peculiar wording. The inclusion of that point seems possibly to criticize a general mindset of people willing to fight and die — or send their children to die — for something they don’t even understand.

Returning to “One” as a song itself, none of this analysis really mattered to me at first. I think I perked up initially at the bridge that happens in the original release at 03:52 and in the video at about 03:54.

Interestingly, this bridge is essentially a two-part — leading and following — melody, but it begins with the second (following) half, which then plays into the first and repeats from there.

The bridge rolls on for about 20-25 seconds, and then you hear Ulrich softly but rapidly double bass drumming to lead into what’s next. And the very first time I heard this, I think seeing the video on MTV at a friend’s house, I was absolutely enraptured.

It’s at 04:36 in the album track and about 04:38 in the video. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett undoubtedly provides the backbone, but I think Hetfield is also adding something, and bassist Jason Newsted is also synched up. It is tight, tight, tight, especially for guitars running thick distortion.

They turn a guitar into a machine gun or maybe an open nerve, pulsing out what I believe is seven notes in one second and repeating it, with a change the fifth time around and accentuated as it goes on.

I was hooked, and definitely had never heard anything like it; not sure if anyone did something similar before that, but I don’t know it if so. I’ve never heard anything quite like it since, and if I did, it’d just be imitation.

I like this focused, intense part of the song particularly at its onset, and then it solos off in various directions. There’s a cool moment in the video right near the point I’m talking about where you see Hetfield, Hammett and Newsted sort of moving and headbanging in total unison as they shred out that sound.

From a skills perspective, I’ll note that in this song, Hammett also shows you exactly what he can do — particularly his speed.

Taken as a whole, it’s a powerful song and statement, and though Metallica had a number of hits to follow, “One” is something of a pinnacle moment just for its originality. Metallica hits from then on often “sounded like Metallica,” you might say, and though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, they may not always have broken ground like “One” did.

What did Hetfield and Ulrich really intend the song to be as a message and statement? Well, as I often say, for that you need to go to the source — I can only speak from my own experience and perspective hearing this as a pre-teen, then getting the album, and playing that moment about four-and-a-half minutes in… over and over and over again.

Content © Aaron G. Marsh