How Can We See Into A Soldier’s Heart? By Music! By ONE, By METALLICA

[Music] hi everyone this is another special weekend focusing on a specific band and this time it is Metallica well I guess my journey kind of almost started with Metallica it was maybe the third or fourth when I listened to and justice for all and you could say maybe it was my my head-on confrontation with what I had always perceived as Factory noise could call it a baptism of sorts right well that was a very memorable experience for me and one that I appreciated a lot although it was a real challenge I came away from that listening and and um study experience really feeling like I had become richer in my musical experience and I appreciated that piece of music greatly I've listened to one other Metallica piece um their recent lukea which I almost don't feel like it should be mentioned because it was not nearly as impressive to me as as and justice for all anyway so it's been over a year since that first exposure to Metallica and I guess maybe Ved had some real reason for not bringing me back to it in a hurry here I am now and one of the songs is going to be one I have no idea what the other one is going to be yet he hasn't told me but this one is one so um before I dive into that let me remind you you can always check out my coffee and patreon membership Pages if you wish to support this journey of mine where I'm exploring music I've never heard before you will find exclusive iive access to videos which can never be published here on YouTube due to copyright issues things like Jimmy Hendrix Eagles The Beatles 150 series and so on as well as Early Access to all virgin Rock videos and a special music theory course for starting from the very beginning round up now before I listen to this piece of music let me see what I should read about it first so I have a little bit of understanding one was released as the third and final single from the band's fourth studio album and justice for all okay so it came from the Same album as and justice for all 1988 written by band members James Hetfield and Lars ulich the song Port portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded arms legs and jaw blown off by a landmine blind and unable to speak or move begging God to take his life being partially based on the 1939 Dalton Trumbo novel Johnny got his gun I guess I'm somewhat familiar with the with the idea behind Johnny got his gun and and the novel and the movie so that gives me a bit of a picture of what we're diving into here the song was the band's first to chart in the US reaching number 35 on the bill board Hot 100 it was also a number one hit in Finland I'm always so curious to see which part of the world these different bands have big success sometimes it's far apart us Finland that's interesting in 1990 the song won a Grammy award for best metal performance the first ever to win in that category in March 2023 that's this year Rolling Stone ranked one at number 11 on their 100 greatest heavy metal songs of all time list so this one is going to be shall we say intense at least that's the impression I get to this date one is for Metallica just as Stairway to Heaven is for lead Zeppelin kind of their signature piece of music I suppose well let's see what this is going to be all [Music] about [Music] oh [Music] I can't remember anything can't tell if this is true or dream deep down inside out feel the dream this terrible silence stops in me now that the war is through with me I'm waking up I can I see that there's not much left to me nothing is real but pain now hold my breath as I wish for de oh please God wake me [Music] back in the womb it's much too real in pump's life that I'm a SP but can't look forward to reveal look to the time when I live head to the dud that sticks in me just like a war time no tied to Machin that make me be cut this life off from there hold my breath is I Wishful de oh please God wake me [Music] now the world is gone I'm just W oh God help me oh my breath is I wish want here oh please God help me [Music] [Music] a [Music] the Darkness imprisoning me all that I see absolute hor I cannot live I cannot die dring Myself by [Music] my that's taking my sight taking my spe taking my ha taking my arms taking my legs taking my soul Happ me with life in [Applause] [Music] H [Music] a [Music] w [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] he that's um that is intense I can't say that it sounded like Factory noise to me this time um actually it was to me incredibly deeply expressive there's a there's a depth to it and a it's like it's coming from the core of a person and I guess it's very well suited to the content the message the topic um I feel like I just need to breathe for a minute though like come out from the Darkness for a moment okay well let's um go back through and I will share some thoughts along the way and talk about what I what I hear what I find in the music and and see what we can discover together [Music] so one of the things I noticed about this piece of music is that it's really about the music music the music is what is expressing this experience this perspective and there are a couple things that point me that Direction one is this opening which is obviously a soundtrack to a battle scene or something like that where you hear the gunfire you hear the helicopter you hear the voices shouting and that is kind of a a look back to what set the scene here so it's not it's not taking us into a piece of music that portrays that moment but it is a snapshot of what put us in this moment here now the other thing that points me this direction is um looking through the lyrics and and they do Express something of the experience but and they do kind of express it directly but I Feel Like These lyrics are simply pointing us towards what the music has to say to us and so we have these two things the intro which is a um Warfare conflict Zone where this injury took place based on the book the movie and then we have the lyrics which are about this present moment in time which are also just telling us how we should relate to the music what we should look for in the music and and what we should understand when the music takes us somewhere it helps to illuminate what's happening in the music although the music is incredibly eloquent on its own if there were no lyrics if there were not this battle moment at the beginning it would be much less precise it would be more ambiguous it would be open to a lot more widely open to interpretation and but but this way we're really pointed to a certain type of experience and understanding a specific set of emotions and viewpoints which the music offers us sometimes I talk about how the music illuminates the text but in this case I would say it's flipped on its head the text illuminates the music and it's primarily about the music the music is what pulls Us in and and drags us down into this Darkness into this into this isolation and this this tragedy and and this hell it's the music that does that to us so let's keep going and now here we are being pulled into the [Music] present this intro say once we get through the battle scene and we're moved into the present we find it with a B minor chord and that's really what we're centered around and one of the things I noticed just as in Justice and Justice for All um this music is not built around tra traditional harmonic schemes and structures and designs and when I did my indepth to and justice for all I had to take a different approach to the music than I might with something more harmonically based structurally traditional here it's about rhythms it's about flavors moments of little little chunks of sound textures colors tonal pictures tone painting and that's what we end up with here this B minor chord doesn't mean that we're going to be in in B minor or meeting the standard chords we might find in the key of B minor but we are centered around B minor as a Sonic Center so actually it needs to be lower because that sounds incredibly gentle right needs to be down here on the strings maybe a bit wiy with some Nails more like it I need some longer nails for this one you know it'd be interesting to try to do a harp cover of this piece I don't know how successful that would be but I should put it on my list of harp covers to explore and maybe at some point in the future I'll surprise you with some something on the harp but anyway for now what I what I wanted to point out is that this B minor it's bit ambiguous at first it's dark it's a it's minor of course and the guitar Paces it in a way that could be funeral it could be omin it could [Music] be possibly reflective or it could end up going somewhere completely different but we don't really know what's happening but then what happens next is this B minor I'll do it up here because the pitches are clearer have the B minor then we end up dropping down that's suddenly dissonant B so edgy so what what has happened is we have dropped lower it's kind of like we're being taken down the steps into this place from here now we drop down we return to this [Music] drop down again accentuating the dissonance there because this F sharp although it's a g down here that clashes it's more noticeable if we place them side by side so we [Music] have and then we return to to be reminded where is this coming from and then as we're kind of being toyed with a bit here we're we're being teased taken down then back then down then back where are we going then it takes us and truly walks Us in from here then we step down and then we step down again and then we drop even lower to here and we have and then the whole thing happens again with the guitar guitar melodic guitar coming in this figure we could call it a riff perhaps we could call it a an it's a rhythmic aato but melodically it has a bit more than pure atinado material we could call it a bit of thematic material although unlike a lot of classical music and even some rock music this is not being developed the Thematic material is not being developed and taken places it's it's more functions as it is this is what we've been given this is what we have to live with kind of like the soldier this is what he's got there's no going anywhere and the way it walks us down walks us down walks us down and draws us downwards into that dark place with this B minor sority and the the dark Clashing of the dissonance G to [Music] FP it's an incredibly eloquent and effective introduction for this tragic setting this tragic experience and and I'm thinking about the use of this word experience many times when we say experience we're talking about something that develops an experience that progresses this is an experience which the lyrics tell us and we find in the music as well it's static there's no there's no leaving it there's no moving forwards in it it's just a constant locked it can almost say a moment in time that continues forever it it doesn't it doesn't go anywhere there's the G back to this now we're going to start walking down and walking down and walking [Music] down [Music] and this guitar that enters it enters as if it's coming out of the depths as if it's coming from down there and rising to the point where we can witness it [Music] and then here come the drums one of the things I noticed in the first listen was how incredibly present and Powerful these drums are I've heard shall I say all kinds of drums in this in this journey so far um textures uh colors Sonic qualities some Maybe crashy splashy some scratchy some noisy some but these have a certain thump that that kind of gets inside and surrounds almost like a a capsule that we live within and again looking at these lyrics and the experience that is being expressed it fits very well this capsule this this um this dark place is it a cell is it a somehow I think of it as being round I don't know why but sonically the drums are quite round aren't they you can't say they have sharp edges really they're the the sound is a round shape and so I think of this capsule in which this person exists as being kind of rounded well I'm not sure it even has a shape but it's certainly a container [Music] as I'm thinking about how this music tells the story I'm not sure that it's really appropriate to assign certain roles to each instrument but at the same time I can't help but try it out if these drums are the capsule the the container the cell the dark place then this guitar which is singing really incredibly expressively this is the humanity this is the the person that is there the this person who from the outside is unreachable and from the inside cannot reach the outside interesting thinking about this as I'm going through and working to finish um Pink Floyd's The Wall and and some of the things that we've been talking about with that series well this is an entirely different and at the same time similar topic because this one was also caused by War and in this one we also have this this barrier this impenetrable separation between everything out there and the person within but here we hear that this person although they are unreachable although they cannot reach out they have a a a soul a Humanity a a a life which still exists and I would say that this guitar is playing the role of that human spirit that that human soul the the human human element of it and so we have the drums as the capsul and we have the guitar as as a as Humanity itself and then we have this which began is kind of the thing that is taking us it's the tour guide perhaps it's the it's the it's the medium through which we get to look inside it's the Storyteller it's the it's the one with the bit of knowledge of this other side the Leon the the link between us the world and the one kind of works doesn't it at least so far it's an interesting interesting thought and I I didn't sit down with the idea of assigning roles but as I'm listening I'm thinking it's kind of doing that that isn't it at least for now we'll see how it goes as we move [Music] along isn't it interesting here how technically this is a technical comment how this riff pattern or this atinado is is staying the same and yet it's getting a bit more vocal it's it's getting a slight variation instead of I'll play it up here it's just easier for me to reach up here than to try to go down and play with my nails so so we have instead of this we have the same notes same notes but we played this twice and then we added an extra one of these and came back to this oops and every [Music] figure we get to hear this dissonance actually that's what it is I have to read my score and then we back do [Music] I said that this didn't develop but it does vary it does manifest itself in different ways and that's what's happening here and and things are getting a little bit more active as we are being drawn into this world maybe more of us is being pulled into it maybe we're starting to feel a bit more of what it's like like down [Music] there I feel like this this um f here the F sharp that is being emphasized here it's so eloquent the way it is then set against this G somehow this G when it comes in and it comes in so rarely compared to everything else when it comes in we hear it and it it's allowed to ring a little bit and we hear the overtones in The Clash and this this dissonance that I was talking about it it um when it comes it's beautiful in its own way there's something there's something incredibly expressive about it listen to what [Music] happens there it is and it rings and it stays there this becomes more atmospheric more gentle there's something the harmonies and the way it it the strumming happens and the the way it's allowed to ring there's something incredibly gentle and sweet about this how do we find gentleness and Sweetness in this place what is this here and this is I suppose the point point at which the whole idea of an instrument serving a role breaks down a bit because here it's different it worked well up until this point and we'll find places along the way where it still works but now this is coming in and it's giving us a different angle emotionally sonically to this picture [Music] I can't remember [Music] anything that is the fshp and the g that I was talking about that that is The Clash the dissonance and now suddenly it's turned into this voice I can't remember [Music] anything when it's it's incredible how musical devices Musical elements have such a different effect depending on how they're used if you're if you're placing it one against the other and you're hearing this it's so sharp and so uncomfortable but when you hear it [Music] sequentially it's is a peaceful stream flowing along and it adds an element of paos to this piece of music when you realize that this person is in this state they still have the capacity to feel every emotion that any one of us can feel they're still fully equipped with their uh emotional senses even though so much else is gone and perhaps they feel it even more um intensely more detail um because of the experience they've been through and because of of their isolation well then of course how many of our emotions that we experience on a day-to-day basis are because of who we are within versus how we relate to the world around us and if the world around us is cut off how many emotions would we still feel on our own it's an interesting thought and I guess it's different for each one of us and be based on circumstances and context of course but still the capacity is there I can't remember anything can't tell if this is true or dream it does have a dream like quality in the [Music] voice and then his voice becomes more the the pain and the passion and the frustration starts coming out in his voice but when he starts this since I can't tell if this is true or a dream it has a dream likee quality to it then we start to have the voice taking us down into the reality of this as well one of the things just a comment I appreciated about this in my first lesson is that the voice when he gives that that roughness the the scream quality to his voice the growl quality it's still very tonally centered and there were moments where it sounded as if the voice and the guitar were one they they they were so in sync with each other and and we'll get there so let's keep going this terrible silence stop now that the war is me I'm waking up I cannot see that there's not much left than me nothing is real but pain now hold my breath as I wish for and as we as the lyrics are taking us through what we should understand in the music nothing is real but pain now and this idea that um I'm waking up I cannot see there's not much left of me we could also take the introduction the introductory material before the verse starts as that waking up period as well coming to Consciousness waking up and finding out the status of things that would be another way of interpreting that and then this chorus this is where the voice and the guitar become incredibly powerful together now hold my breath as I wish for de oh please God wake me and notice how this chorus part is this dark intense musical moment is when he says he starts talking about death hold my breath as I wish for death he's trying to hurry himself towards death because I mean if he could just hold his breath long enough he would run out of oxygen the poor person can't even manage to hold his breath long enough oh please God wake me this wishing for death this begging for death this crying out or please God wake me from this nightmare is it a dream is it real I either want to die or I want to wake [Music] up back in the and as as we are going through this little interlude section let's listen to that [Music] again in isn't it interesting how this interlude has us a little bit higher but then it takes us back into kind of walks us down from this E minor down to the same [Music] place listen to that [Music] transition back in the same [Music] place for to reveal look to the time when I live bed to the tube that sticks in me just like a war time Noy tied to machines that make me be cut this life off from hold my breath as I wish wishing for death again yeah yeah oh please God wake me it's incredible how the voice and the guitar match in that chorus section it's so good so balanced and [Music] the the tonal quality quality of both is so present Works incredibly [Music] well and we go through this same rising and falling [Music] now the world is gone this passage here kind of the guitar solo perhaps we could call it it takes us up a bit brighter there's a hopefulness to it and at the same time we find ourselves backed down at the same place but somehow as I'm listening to the drums in this guitar solo I begin to feel like the drums are not just functioning as the capsule the cell but also the desire to break out from the inside the beating at the walls pounding at the walls from within it's it's the heartbeating it's the it's the spirit trying to break out of this prison and the guitar is kind of this again this reminder that this a real human being there's also a quality of life support here um if you've ever been been in a hospital Ward you hear you hear all the different beeping and the pumping and the machines helping keep things alive and and giving warnings when something is off and and you could say that this guitar has some of those beeps mixed in with this whole it's it's this whole swirling mix of of sounds and experiences and and places here just kind of in a waiting space [Music] now the world is gone out this W oh God help me oh my breath as I wish want to oh please God help me and this is where it really starts to get incredibly emotionally intense and dark we didn't have we didn't have a verse here we just returned to the chorus um now the world is gone I'm just one what a what a realization that for me nothing else exists but me I'm trapped I can't I can't find anybody I can't get to anybody I am just one I didn't know when I started listening to this what this one idea was about in fact because I listened to Injustice for all I was thinking maybe one is some other um some other angle of United all together we're we're one but no this person is just one and it doesn't matter how many have the same experience each one of them is one that's incredibly powerful because it's not just about the fact that there's nobody else around but each one of them is truly one one real human being one person one individual one life and it it shows us the value the incredible value of every single individual no matter how messed up they seem to be no matter how destroyed by their their experiences their sacrifices we often give these recite these phrases you know he he gave his all he sacrificed everything he he gave for his country he all of these things which are all true but they become cliche they become tired they become meaningless with overuse and we start to feel like how many times do we have to hear this over and over again because I mean come on this song brings us back to the reality to the awareness that every single one matters not just who they are now but who they were who they always will be what they had before matters what they've gone through matters what they have to live with now matters they thems matter and it it Sharp sharpens our appreciation for what they've done for what they've been through and many of us like me sitting here all comfortable in my chair in my nice Studio having never been through these experiences it's important for us to remember those things and to stay sharply aware of these incredible human beings what they do what they've done what they endure because and and we can't I understand that Metallica is as we saw with Injustice for all they call out the hypocrisy Y and the corruption and all the dark dirty things that we don't like to think about we don't like to talk about the way Nations work and countries work and leaders work and and Humanity works that is all true but what we have to remember is that every single person matters regardless the corruption regardless the story the politics and everything else every individual matters and I guess that is what I feel is the the most powerful thing about this song is that it shows us the one oh please God help me feel the the [Music] plantic entrapment Terror and the strength Here Comes it's an echo of the battlefield a reflection of the battlefield in other words this person carries those the battlefield has become this person and this person has become the battlefield the the guns going off that is now embedded in this person and that is one of the last things this person remembered from the world out there before they were isolated here and so it has a special poignancy and a a very strong impact it's also it's also the strength of this person they're still alive and it's their Spirit their Drive begging for death wanting to wake up from this nightmare this hellish dream we wish it were a dream beating at the walls without fists you have you have no way to do it and yet it's within this person person that strength and that desire to escape and and it's the heartbeat it's it's so many things and we hear it over and over and over again because it is in a way this person's [Music] existence [Music] you can look at the score here it's the same all the way [Music] through [Music] Darkness en visiting me all and when the voice comes in we hear again the horror and the this becomes more than just the heartbeat more than just the sounds of the battlefield more than all of that that I mentioned now it becomes Darkness imprisoning me all that I see absolute horror I cannot live I cannot die absolute horror trapped in myself body my holding cell land mine has has taken my sight taken my speech taken my hearing taken my arms taken my legs taken my soul left me with life in hell this becomes musically the representation of hell and all that it brings in the the guns of the the Blazing guns of the battlefield the static existence it's not going anywhere nothing else is happening and it goes on and on and on and oning me all that I see Absolut all I canot live I cannot die Dr Myself by my [Music] only that's taking my sight diing my spe taking my ha taking my arms diing my legs ding my soul let me with life [Applause] [Music] in it's Relentless it doesn't let up and then the drums come in and and reinforce this they are it is trying to tell us this is all that this person is this is now absolute there is no escaping there is no other future not here not now [Music] fr the [Music] fear desperation descending falling clawing stratching squeeing and it goes [Music] on and this is the point at which we realize that the lyrics as as impactful as they are this is not about the lyrics this is about the music the lyrics are over they've told us what they need to tell us now we just live with the music we live with the music all the way to the [Music] end [Music] and such an Abrupt end it's part of the message of the music and I guess I could see a couple different messages it has to give us one is that just as this is so abrupt and final so this experience is in incredibly final for this person there's a finality to it that doesn't break it also HKS back to the battlefield scene that we opened with the sounds we have these final gun shots here which are accentuated reminding us that this was a very sudden occurrence there was the battlefield and then there was nothing and the third the third message I think is a we could say it's the glimmer of hope the hopeful point of the entire piece and that is that as as unending as this seems as final as it is it doesn't Fade Away into Infinity it does have an end maybe he came to the end of his life maybe some other intervention took place but fortunately it doesn't go on for eternity it does has come to an end and that end is final how deep are a soldier's scars and I'm not just talking about the physical scars the psychological the emotional the spiritual and physical how deep are they really well just a few days ago I a vehicle drove in our driveway and someone stepped out of the vehicle and it was my sister my little sister in her uniform and she had just returned from her tour overseas fortunately all in one piece happy healthy at least from what those of us outside can see and I'm incredibly happy I was so happy to see her I was so happy to be able to put my arms around her and and to know that she is home safe home the question that comes to my mind after having listened to something like this who can can look into a soldier's heart and see what is there see how it is actually that's not quite the question question is how for those of us who have never had the solders experience we've never been to the places a soldier has had to go how do we see that person because it should always be our desire to see truly each person in front of us each one with whom we interact how do we see and that is where art steps in that is where music steps in that is where Metallica steps in and through ART through this Sonic experience we are enabled to catch a glimpse it opens a door to a world which is not ours may never be ours but it is theirs and it's very real and art has this incredible ability power to take us places that we've never been to take us places which we could not not go otherwise to to express and understand and communicate both thinking about it the soldiers because if we were to sit down with a soldier and and have them tell us really who they were and how their experience was and is would we really understand I would guess probably not it's so foreign to our experience even if it's a very close family member even if somebody who like me it's my very own little sister who I know quite well but the music gives a little glimpse into that part of her which perhaps she could never express to me and probably I could never comprehend even if she had the words to tell me and why how how how does the music do that how does art do that why does music do that this to us when words probably can't because well I think it's because words no matter how eloquent they're describing they're telling they're they're trying to give us a picture a description of an experience of a life but they are not not the life itself they're not the experience itself music has this special capacity to enter into us to get into our very the very core of our being who we are we internalize music in a very unique way and music has the ability to take us into itself and so just as at the beginning of this song with the introduction where I commented on how it seems like it's pulling us down into this place music takes us there as much as anything other than the real experience could take us anywhere music can do that and music does do that and good music used with skill with conviction with passion has this power within it and I I think that I have to say that this piece of music has that power will I return to Metallica well of course this is the Metallica Focus weekend so I can hardly wait to see what this next pieces that I'm going to be listening to this weekend I don't know it yet vad knows I will find out very soon but I am eager to explore Metallica further because well as much as I detested um disliked and couldn't relate to factory noise a couple years ago or so I have to say that the two major Metallica pieces I've listened to and I'm leaving Luke SATA out of that and justice for all and one these two pieces I have found to be incredibly powerful with depth and passion and eloquence and skill it's not just about the skill it's not just about the virtuosity or the expertise or the or the knowledge or the interesting ideas or the the way they had it's not about that it's about all of it together and the artistic the artistic experience that emerges from that and that we are drawn into with these two pieces I'll see you next time

Channel: Virgin Rock

Views: 74,111

Keywords: rock, rock music, music review, rock music review, metallica

Id: NFbL9hI3qJ8

Length: 75min 29sec (4529 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 23 2023