• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 499 0

novel, Johnny Got His Gun, ‘One’ had started as a song James was thinking about based on the notion of ‘just being a brain and nothing else’ before Cliff Burnstein suggested he read Trumbo’s book. The story of Joe Bonham, a good-looking, all-American boy encouraged to fight in World War I by his patriotic father, who urges him to ‘be brave’, when a German shell explodes near him, Bonham loses his legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. After coming to terms with his gruesome circumstances in hospital while surrounded by frankly horrified doctors and nurses, Bonham uses the only part of his physical being he is still able to control – his head – to tap out a message in Morse code: ‘Please kill me.’ ‘James got a lot of input from that,’ said Lars. So did Mensch and Burnstein when they heard the demo.

There was another important change to their strategy they’d decided on before going into the studio: unlike Master of Puppets, there would be at least one recognisable single and – even more significantly – video on the next album. Despite their public posturing, Dave Thorne says the question of singles had never been completely ruled out. ‘When I’d quizzed Mensch about it in the past, he’d always said, “Well, if the right opportunity comes along, the band might consider it.”’ Thorne speculates that it was probably Elektra who ‘they had a strong working relationship with’ that probably convinced them to at least give it a go. In fact, both James and Lars had come round to the idea of a regular Metallica single and video since the unexpected success that year of Garage Days and, in particular, Cliff ’Em All – the first clear indication they’d had that they didn’t need to make videos by anyone’s rules but their own. Mensch and Burnstein, who already understood the huge sales value of having a single and attendant video on MTV, were merely biding their time, waiting for the right moment to broach the subject again with Lars and James.

That moment came with the realisation that ‘One’ might lend itself well to some sort of visual interpretation that would complement the music in an arresting, artistic way. They became even more excited by the idea when it emerged that Trumbo – a left-wing, pro-peace screenwriter hounded out of Hollywood during the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s – had actually directed a film version of the book, released in 1971 at the height of the Vietnam War. Might they be able to utilise scenes from it for a possible future video? Burnstein wondered. According to Rasmussen, they had actually bought the rights to the movie ‘in order to use it in the video’ before they had even begun recording with him: ‘It was not much of a movie but they liked the look of it and thought it would look great in a video.’ They also utilised some of the special effects on the original soundtrack, layering the sound of machine-gun fire and exploding landmines over the intro to the track.

As ‘Stairway to Heaven’ became for Led Zeppelin and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for Queen, ‘One’ for Metallica represented the band at its musical apotheosis, containing all that was great and original about them in one incident-filled journey, from its quietly lush, heartrendingly melodic guitar intro to its steadily building mid-section, up to its volcanic, lights-out climax; its lyrics coming straight to the terrifying point: ‘Hold my breath as I wish for death…Now the world is gone / I’m just one…’ This was not the standard rock stance of a Van Halen or Mötley Crüe, or even a Guns N’ Roses. This was revelation, a song utterly removed from its time; its unforeseen side effect, to alter the circumstances surrounding Metallica for ever. You didn’t have to be a Metallica fan to appreciate the artistry of ‘One’, any more than you have to be a Zeppelin fan to adore ‘Stairway’. But if you were, it was a milestone moment; one the band would arguably never equal.

Tellingly, the only other track after ‘One’ that just about manages to transcend its laboured surrounds is the album’s shortest, ‘Dyer’s Eve’, its speedy razor-cut riff a moment of breathe-out relief