Metallica, … And Justice For All - A Classical Musician’s First Listen, Reaction, and Study

[Music] hi everyone this is going to be my first ever metallica experience as usual in the first part you will get to see my first listen to and justice for all and my spontaneous reactions and thoughts about it in the second part i will dig deeper into the music score and explore the main ideas demo a few things on the piano and we'll find out how such a long song holds up so well so and justice for all i have heard the name metallica and i i'm curious i understand that they're associated with rock music and i'm curious what kind of music and how it sounds and you know their style well i've been told that it's a little bit different than queen or the beatles so i'll find out anyway i've picked a piece named um and justice for all which is kind of an interesting name makes me think of you know liberty and justice for all so um i guess the best thing to do is dive in and see what i discover so here we go [Music] it's a very pleasant intro i kind of like the guitar [Music] well it has so far a very gentle kind of lyrical melody starting out i'm hearing only guitar like it sounds more like acoustic style not not electric guitar and i'm familiar with acoustic guitar so it's relatable so far [Music] oh boy yeah okay something happened here uh um it's really changing okay um that was really quite an abrupt change i would say a little surprising for me i'm going to back up just a second or two there we go [Music] okay this is where it's coming again and that's where it starts okay that's noisy [Music] okay now we're back to guitar this is interesting it's like it's throwing me back and forward right okay it seems like it's getting more intense it seems like they're starting to leave the guitar behind that gentle acoustic opening i'm curious what they're going to do with it why are they doing it [Music] interesting right this is the kind of music i'm really i feel completely out of place i don't know how to relate to this really like i'm hearing it and maybe you see it my response is like oh my goodness it's coming at me you know so i'll keep going [Music] okay it's going and it's going and it's going and it's going and it's going [Music] right it's it's not like it's disorganized i hear that there is a very clear ordered outline even just a little bit i've listened to so far there seems to be a plan and a way the music is developing [Music] and it goes on [Music] yeah when i hear something like this i'm like okay you did that once you did it again you did it again we have to do that again really okay fine let's keep going [Music] yeah they've changed it up a little bit i hear some variation happening now we're back to the somebody likes the drums [Music] okay i just heard the voice come in now i'm going to pull up the lyrics here because i might be very good at hearing lyrics from uh choir like let's say a coral setting classical choral setting i can make out those lyrics easily but this i can't unless i'm following the words so i'm going to pull it up here and i'll keep listening [Music] [Music] okay so obviously this isn't going to be something about celebrating justice for all i begin to see why the intro that was a very long intro but um you know it started out very lyrical and melodic and nice kind of like the idea i had coming to this and justice for all right and i'm thinking liberty and justice for all what a nice concept and now i'm looking at the words and saying that it's not talking about it's not celebrating liberty and justice for all it's halls of justice painted green money talking power wolves beset your door hear them stalking okay so suddenly i realize that's why there's this really really intense hard edge to the music because it seems to be more about a something that's supposed to be justice for all but isn't all right so i'm going on now [Music] okay yeah yeah those those lyrics make sense with the music right hammer of justice you saw me when i heard the intro i'm like oh my goodness right so that suits the music or the music actually i would say suits the words because i wouldn't say that this music really stands on its own it needs the words to explain it i didn't understand it until i started paying attention to the what was written what was being sung [Music] is [Music] okay it's yeah i i think i am beginning to get the idea of the peace it's um seems to be a sort of a cry against injustice rather than than talking about something that is just so it's this sort of horrified um viewing of something that is twisted and warped and and doing exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to be doing okay let's go on that's pretty hardcore [Music] [Music] okay that gets us to the end of i can tell by the reading the words that's the end of the chorus i guess i don't have a lot to say about the music other than that it suits what's being expressed i don't have a lot to say right now but i'm going to keep listening okay so this is should be coming up to the second verse here i think [Music] uh here's the same thing coming back right it's the same same little guitar that is how they're holding the piece together in between it seems to be the what i would call the glue of the piece right so you've got the intro and that's where they presented that glue and i was like again and again and again okay now they've set you up to recognize that and it kind of brings you back into the the starting point [Music] hey [Music] so i was curious about something and i see um that they didn't do what i wondered if they might do i wondered if they might change the tone the dynamic of the instruments in the second verse since it's built around words maybe the second verse i was thinking okay the first verse is this now the second verse might have a different instrumental support but they didn't which lets me know that they're looking at the bigger picture they're not looking at at a a sort of instrumental shaping of the words where every word gets its own nuance it's not at all that it's really not what i would call nuanced at all i mean the guy is just basically yelling out these words and um the instruments are basically screaming out their notes and the drum is pounding away and um they're going towards the the whole idea that the words are expressing rather than taking time to say oh this word is this and this word will sound like that and it's it's a it's a more broad picture approach to the idea [Music] [Music] i can't believe the things you say [Music] i also noticed something else that that i as i'm reading through these words i'm noticing that these lyrics are so much more uh developed complex than the other two pieces i listened to before this the one by queen about love of my life and the other one she's leaving home by the beatles these words are much more artistic i guess i would say they have more they have a lot of thought put into them and and how they're even the vocabulary is richer and i guess i like that i always enjoy colorful expressive multi-shaded multifaceted words and poetry and and even in music i do right but but i appreciate this about these words so anyway let's go on [Music] [Music] again this is just kind of the same thing coming back coming back and it's like the music is driving this home it's like it's trying to pound it into your minds that something is really really really wrong it's unbelievable it's shocking it's horrifying you know all the words they're using right but i i hear that the music is really trying to drive that into the audience [Music] okay we're back to that little guitar figure right and now i hear also the same interrupted um shock moments that i heard at the beginning and didn't really know what to make of it now i see that it makes more sense because of what the words are doing and it's kind of like it's kind of like what the singer was saying um i can't believe the price you pay right and and he kind of interrupted that as a sort of shock moment and i guess the instruments are kind of doing the same thing here the way they just come to a dead stop in the middle of everything [Music] and then it goes on again [Music] so this is obviously kind of maybe the halfway point of the piece as far as the the way the piece is ordering itself i heard a long introduction i've heard two verses so far and now i'm hearing kind of an interlude is what i would call it i don't know what what it's called in rock music but in classical music we call it an interlude when there's an instrumental section between sets of of words that are being sung i can tell that this is a longer set here because already we're going back to repeat the same thing again rather than jumping into the next words [Music] and one other thing this is so unfamiliar to me if i were listening to something classical i would be better able to to follow and say all right this is identical to what came before but i'm not used to listening to this kind of percussive um aggressive sound and and it's so overwhelming to me psychologically that that i i've lost track i don't know if this is exactly what i heard in the intro or if it's a variation of what i heard or if it's a development of what i heard i'm unable to compare right in this moment and to to pull more out of it just because it's so new and it's so intense so perhaps there's something here that i'm missing musically but i'm it'll take me a few more lessons to and maybe some you know maybe i'll find a score somewhere even to look at in the second half but that's just something that i'm realizing i can't quite follow the whole scheme of everything and understand it fully right now somebody likes that little guitar line [Music] kind of a show-off moment isn't it [Music] this reminds me of of what we would call a cadenza in classical music and that's a that's a term that we use to describe a sort of virtuosic moment where maybe the orchestra is has been playing along and the soloist whether it's a singer or an in or a violinist or you know some instrumental solo they get a moment to show off a bit and and so the orcis orchestra comes to a place where a place where it either pauses completely or settles into a very background supportive role and then the soloist is given free reign they can do whatever they please and you know they can show off all their technical prowess and whatever else they can do in the context of that piece and that little bit there with that guitar and everything kind of made me think of that sort of cadenza moment maybe that's how maybe that's how it's done here i don't know anyway [Music] so i'm just guessing as much as i can gather from the way the music is working out that maybe now we're back to this steady rhythm maybe that's setting us up for the next verse i don't know for sure but that's just a i guess [Music] we're kind of going in slow motion now putting on the brakes [Music] so instead of being what i thought it was setting us up for uh the next verse it was setting us up for a change in pace and then the percussion and the band kind of stepped on the brakes and slowed it down and it's not the kind of slowing down that loses energy it kind of kind of makes the energy just all bundle up behind it like it wants to go go go but they're just holding it back and holding it back and it has its own way of intensifying the piece [Music] now it seems like we're picking up speed a little bit again very controlled i'm impressed i'm impressed with the level of control here [Music] okay now i hear this sort of repetitive pattern coming back is that the setup for the next verse i don't know but now i'm kind of sitting on the edge of my seat of what is coming next they managed to build in me even though i have no understanding of this kind of music and i'm kind of groping in the dark a bit to try to wrap my mind and comprehend what's going on here they still managed to get me to be waiting on the edge of my seat so to speak for what is coming next and that's a pretty pretty good accomplishment [Music] [Music] okay it's really percussive right here it's just hardly any guitar okay now the guitar is coming back in and it's the same little melody right this is what we would call a a motif or a motif where you have this little tiny clip a little tiny sample of of sound right that is what we call a musical motif or musical motive where um the composer uses that in very creative ways sometimes they use it just by raw repetition like it seems what's happening here other times they dress it up and get all fancy and take it in new directions and stuff like that but i am able to recognize that in this music and i see that is a very important part of this musically speaking [Music] and okay and just about when i'd given up on the idea of the voice returning it just came out of nowhere there it is [Music] y'all well that's pretty intense as far as the as far as the ideas and the music but again i would say that this music is doing a very fine job of supporting the the expression of the words [Music] i can't believe i can't believe the price we pay okay and this is coming back well it has already come back to the repeated lines after the verse the chorus type thing and it's that's where it's it's all it's all coming together and summing up all that has been expressed so isn't far justice is right justice is gone [Music] pulling yours free justice is done seeking no truth winning is yeah i don't i'm not able to find anything else in the music beyond what i've already said yet i feel like i'm going to need to listen to this piece a few more times as i prepare for the second half because i'm this is challenging for me it's it's not something that really sinks in it's like almost my mind is and my comprehension is kind of bracing against it trying to back away from it because it's so different and so foreign to what my usual listening habits are but i'm going to do this and i'm going to give it a try and i'm going to see what i can come up with but i think we're getting close to the end so we'll just finish that more instrumental [Music] [Music] and another thing that i haven't mentioned yet but it's the style of the singing because as a classical musician i keep coming back to that i'm used to a type of singing where where the singers are cultivating a sound that is designed to be very attractive and very very expressive this is more like somebody just kind of yelling a few notes out right and we find that sometimes in classical music for a special effect or or you know a small moment but we don't hear this sort of whole song song at screaming volume it's just not done and it's kind of strange to me [Music] [Music] and it cuts off that abruptly okay that was a really interesting experience for me to listen to this with you and um i have some work to do i guess i would say that just like the music suits the idea that the words are expressing so also even though i'm so unaccustomed to this screaming singing i think it suits the music too i mean i think it suits the words the ideas that the words are expressing one of the things about classical music my background is that it really a lot of it developed in the church you know during the middle ages and renaissance and baroque era and all of that it was a very worship oriented although of course not all of it was worship oriented but but that was a huge part of the development of music happened in the worship context well of course um in a worship context a lot of what you're trying to do is express ideas about god and um being the developing in the western in the western part of the world of course it was christianity based and the christian ideas about god are ones of love and mercy and forgiveness and sacrifice and all of those things um you know there are some parts of it that are also about judgment and and justice and that too because that's all part of the set of concepts that the music is doing but with this overarching idea that what what the music is attempting to do is either to express or communicate or explore these concepts built around this idea of love both both humanity is love towards god and god's love towards humanity and all that that entails in the western church tradition and then of course along comes the romantic what we call the romantic era where classical music kind of broadened out beyond the church a bit more than before and there came to be this focus on expressing and exploring love human to human you know there's a lot of songs about lovers and lovers lost and or or nature and the natural world and and exploring these natural world experiences and and concepts and so forth it all has a lot of love in it a lot of give and take i see that this music is different and i guess there's a place for it because in real life it's not all love there are a lot of human emotions and experiences that people go through all around the world which are very very hard and very brutal and very much have have absolutely nothing to do with love either a human to human love or a human to divine love or however one might express it and so this song itself it's delving into one of those elements one of those aspects and and it's trying to express something that needs to be expressed it's trying to address something that is very real and needs to be addressed and i can there's a there's an important place for that and so i see how this has a value even though i personally struggle to relate to this kind of music um and i am probably doing a very poor job of it today in this first listen but i see that there is a value and an importance to it and so i'm going to take some time and see what more i can learn about this and and delve into it musically artistically um and and i'll come back in the second half and let you know what i find hi everyone i'm back and um i've taken a few days to try to dig into this song and i have a lot to say and uh some things to show you on the piano and all kinds of stuff so let's dig right in of course the words of the title piece are are um and justice for all are the final four words of the pledge of allegiance so we all instantly recognize them and we associate them with patriotism and the high ideals we have for this country i found out this song comes from metallica's fourth album and serves as the title piece so the album itself is called and justice for all from what i could find out they came up with the name and ideas for it kind of thought oh that's a cool idea and then they went looking for some inspiration and it seems like one of the things they used um they watched as they were developing the ideas of the piece was a 1979 movie of the same name in which al pacino played a lawyer who realizes that the justice system is full of corruption and favoritism and it kind of helps them develop their approach i also found out this album showcases some of metallica's most complex music maybe there are some other pieces on it that i should try out and and so maybe that's coming in the future some of the songs including this one were so complex that the band had a really hard time reproducing the sound for their tour in support of the album for their live tour kirk hammett said in an interview once that the band had finished playing this song and one of them said we are never playing that song ever again and they didn't for more than 20 years i guess they finally gave another live performance in 2007. this is a long song and i didn't realize how unusually long it is for its genre until reading about it because i'm used to classical concerts and we all sit down and listen to a piece of music that lasts for 30 or 40 minutes or or more but i found out that that is not how it is with rock music um in fact i discovered that after the first few live performances of this song um one of the reasons they gave up the idea and said we're never doing that again is because they realized that after about five minutes the live audience would get bored and start yawning and be ready for it to be over and the song is barely half finished of course my first listen of it i didn't have a chance to be bored because i was trying so hard to follow and comprehend this unfamiliar music and i'll admit this piece has been a real challenge and i've had to work hard to get into it and to understand it so one of the things i wanted to talk about was what is it that makes a long piece of music work is this piece too long really or does it actually work as a long piece it has to do with the architectural design of a piece okay i do understand now that rock a rock concert is has a different purpose and atmosphere than a symphony hall but music has certain common characteristics and requirements regardless of the genre so if a piece of music is going to be very long it requires two things first of all it it has to hold hold together meaning there has to be some way of making it come across as as one song one piece of music not just a string of separate songs or musical ideas that are all patched together the second thing it has to keep the audience engaged for its entire duration i'm talking about music that's made for listening to background music is different so if we're meant to pay attention the music has to engage us and it can do that either by pulling us deeply into an experience an atmosphere a place or it can take us on an interesting journey or perhaps both in classical music my background we often do this by developing a musical idea it's kind of like taking some raw building material let's say i have a whole stack of lumber and cutting it into different shapes and fastening it together at different angles it's all the same material but it's presented in so many different ways and has so many different so much potential for manifesting itself in different ways that it stays interesting if it has a good designer and here's a little piano example of what i mean so the song i'm going to use to illustrate this idea of a theme is a sonatina by clementi it's a pretty popular one for students because it's fairly uh approachable and easy to grasp the concepts so here is the first theme that we have in this sonata you might even recognize it if you've studied music or had anyone take piano lessons it's a lively little recognizable snip of sound in this sonatina that happens multiple times and then it is developed in different ways so a little bit later in the piece it sounds like this it's still recognizable but it's shifted a bit to have a little different quality and then even later it sounds like this basically the same thing is the opening but lower then it changes again and it's different yet again we call this thematic development and in this way we are able to get myriad different kinds of musical moods and colors and experiences simply by creatively using some small theme and so it holds together as one single piece of music it has common ground of course the longer a song is the more thematic material is needed to keep it engaging so composers often use two or even more themes in a single piece of music the sonatina does it and we see exactly that happening also in and justice for all and justice for all has two main themes plus a third one which is kind of an elaboration of theme number two let me show you what they are so the first thing we hear is what we get at the beginning of the song and it starts out like this and so on you recognize that and you'll hear it over and over repeated multiple times in the first portion of and justice for all then a bit later we get to the second theme the second theme sounds like well it's kind of tricky because i'm on the piano and the piano doesn't do things that the electric guitar does so you'll see you'll feel like it's kind of lacking something but still you can get the basic idea so the second theme is setup with this little rhythmic preparation that sounds a bit like this okay and then immediately after that here comes the second theme which goes [Music] and it goes back and forth between that theme and so forth and you'll hear that over and over in the piece now what we call the third theme is kind of as i said uh [Music] an elaborate variation of that second theme it's up here and it sounds like this [Music] and you'll hear it you'll hear this one down here several times and then the higher sounds come in and so forth of course again it's got a little more warp and and ornamentation happening in the guitar itself but you'll recognize if you listen to the piece those themes now unlike the clementi sonatina this song doesn't really develop the themes it uses them more like a motif basically exactly as they were first stated simply repeating and reinforcing them perhaps layering more instruments that creates a sense of unity as well and since this is not an instruments only piece but a song so that the main message of the piece is actually conveyed through its words we don't expect or need the musical ideas to be developed and explored like in a sonatina or sonata or symphony but repeating the same motif over and over and over can get very dull and it needs some surprise elements to keep it fresh which is just what happens in this song not only do you have the transition times between the themes which grab our attention and help us to move smoothly as i said before it should sound unified not just tacked together the transition moments help us to move smoothly from one theme to the other they also give us something interesting to kind of break up the monotony but we also find the long elaborate guitar solos after the second verse which might at first seem like they're coming out of nowhere these solos break the monotony but because they built the solo in such a way that it uses the same harmonies as we hear in the chorus it still holds together and feels like it belongs to the piece so it's not like just a different song dropped into the center of stuff that doesn't really relate how does all of this contribute to the effectiveness of the song to me it seems like the repetitiveness without development is actually a very eloquent way of conveying what it's like to attempt to seek for justice in a warped system it's like no escape is opening itself to you you cannot find a way out it just goes on and on and on the assault gets closer and then the solo sections where there are really they're really two sections here the first builds into a wild frantic screaming flailing about when you realize that the system is so stacked against you that there is no way out in the imagery of the song the victim is raging and grasping at straws and thrashing and fighting but cannot resist the aggressor and and that is the moment at which musically the rape is accomplished the second section returns to the first thing remember the theme at the very opening of the piece that lilting beautiful melody where it was setting us up to think of and justice for all like it's a beautiful concept but now the same theme comes back and unlike how it was presented at the beginning it now appears as a more mechanical character and each repetition of it as it builds and builds is more relentless more brutal more of a bulldozer quality and so when the third verse arrives the victim is displayed as completely destroyed while the machine continues without a backward glance it is entirely unaffected by what has occurred um it has no emotional impact on this this um system and that is conveyed by the fact that the musical motifs in the third verse [Music] are exactly the same as what we heard before there's no change in their character there is no difference is the song too long that depends on why you are listening to it if you want an easy listening piece something to you know add to your fun maybe i don't know dance to or have a party around or something it's certainly going to drag on too long for you and if you're going to a live rock concert where you want this sort of adrenaline rush and fun time i can see why it doesn't really work there but if you are looking for an eloquent portrayal of an experience that is very unfortunately felt by many possibly even by you or someone you know if you want to glimpse into what it is to be treated unjustly by the very systems which were established to protect and defend and exonerate the innocent and to treat the guilty fairly and justly then the length of the piece is not only acceptable but also critical because the length itself is part of this picture these experiences don't happen in such a way that a person can get through it quickly and move on instead they are often interminable and often they don't even end until the person is dead you know the grave and the bees kind of ends at the sudden stop like it's right it doesn't end until you're dead how would i grade this piece uh musically if i'm judging this on musical merits alone it definitely has some room for musical development i guess metallica kind of sensed it themselves i don't think it's only because it was hard to present in concert i think i think they understood that musically it has some challenges so on musical merits alone i'm going to give it a score around five or six it's not bad but as we've talked about this idea of how long music works you can see why it's got some challenges there now the lyrics i haven't really talked about the lyrics a whole lot the theme is crystal clear and they choose the best way to point out this theme of corruption not only corruption but corruption of justice the greenback determines what is just the dollar writes the reality justice is portrayed as a lady and the dimension and brutality of the corruption is revealed by using the image of rape justice is lost justice is raped justice is gone and then they go on winning is all describing a society which is seeking no truth meaning the scale of values is corrupt it's it's reversed the the truth means nothing while winning is the ultimate goal even if the means for that are corrupt so now this kind of reminds me of a line from from the chernobyl hbo series um i watched that some time back and and there's this line that has stuck with me every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth sooner or later that debt is paid metallica doesn't seem to see any way out from this for them the present as well as the future is so grim that at the end of the day nothing can save you the poetry is quite rich in its vocabulary i i really enjoyed the creativity and the depth of it i wouldn't call it highly artistic but it was very good so i'm going to give it a score of seven now interpretation this is tricky for me because um again i'm not used to assessing this kind of music but i would say after having spent some time and listening to it over and over and really trying to understand the piece the interpretation and the communication of the message is highly effective i'm not saying i like listening to it but i'm saying that metallica masterfully achieves its goal the voice and the instruments work together so well that the meaning of it the message really hits home and then overall how does it all work together everything works together in this piece to create the both the emotional and the cerebral impact even the weaknesses of the music end up contributing to the overall effectiveness of the work as a whole so that all together it is an outstanding song and i'm going to give it a total score of 8. do i like it well let me rephrase that do i enjoy it no personally i find this kind of music incredibly stressful and fatiguing to listen to but that doesn't mean i can't appreciate it and recognize that it has value and importance this piece does a very good job of describing a nasty ugly hurtful side of society this is what i naturally feel while listening to it distress tension revolt maybe even fear i can't enjoy those feelings but i certainly appreciate a valuable piece of art that is able to convey this in such a um an effective manner anyway i'm looking forward to your comments and further suggestions um like and subscribe if you want to follow my channel and we'll see what the next piece is

Channel: Virgin Rock

Views: 201,687

Keywords: rock, rock music, music review, rock music review, metallica, and justice for all

Id: d_ekrRu_t9M

Length: 52min 51sec (3171 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022