The song Metallica never stopped promoting.
The year Nirvana “changed music forever”, the album Metallica (1991) by Metallica was actually a bigger deal. The album sold more than Nevermind, and its legion of fans were arguably much more fervent. If James Hetfield had died in 1994 instead of Kurt, the legacies of Nirvana and Metallica might have been swapped in media rounds.
Metallica will always be a Gen X favorite, but even Gen Z seems curious about them. They might be less open to metal overall, but Metallica is familiar enough to be ripe for memes. On the final episode of Stranger Things Season 4, “Master of Puppets” was featured to great effect. (Eddie Munson played the riff in the Upside Down to distract the demobats.) Metallica has had a resurgence in popularity over the last few years.
I, personally, do not like “Enter Sandman” very much. I used to play the riff in pep band during breaks at basketball games. I feel like everyone has heard the song, or at least the guitar part, from the bleachers at some low-level sporting event. It is remarkably easy to play, which is both a positive and a negative in terms of the song’s appeal.
The guitar lick was written by Kirk Hammett at home. Despite the intuitive nature of the clean riff at the beginning of the song, the demo he brought into the studio actually began with the distorted version of the lick heard at the :55 second mark. Producer Bob Rock wanted the band to embrace tighter, more focused songwriting, and the clean guitar intro was likely decided as a way to bring the song quickly to life. The formula worked well for “One”, …And Justice For All’s only well recognized single.
The songwriting process for Metallica is highly peculiar, as even though Kirk came up with the main riffs and recorded them on a demo he brought into the studio, only James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are credited as songwriters. As typical, the lead guitar solo—arguably the most iconic part of any Metallica track—was all Kirk Hammett. He’s said it only took a couple of minutes to write and that he was surprised it became so iconic.
The lyrics came later. On the first version of the song, James brought to the band lyrics about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (crib death), with lines that originally included:
> “Disrupt the perfect family
Sleep with one eye open”
Bob Rock and Lars Ulrich said that the lyrics were too literal and upsetting and encouraged James to go broader. The lyrics became about childhood nightmares, and it evolved into the titular character coming to get you in your dreams. Metallica, just as the rest of the world, had been exposed to the idea of the boogeyman coming to get you in your sleep via Freddy Krueger and a decade of Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
I don’t necessarily credit James for coming up with a revolutionary concept, and some would argue that the start of James’s bad era of lyrical output began right here. After four albums of lyrics that held up remarkably well under scrutiny, James went a little simple. Some would even say trite. Here is a sample line from “Poor Twisted Me”, from Load (one album later):
> Swallow whole the pain
Oh, it’s too good to be
That all this misery
Is just for oh, poor twisted me, oh yeah
Poor twisted me
So James was getting burnt out with his lyric-writing process during the 1980s. During Metallica’s first 10 years, James was known to obsess about phrasing, rhythm, and word choice to make the lyrics both resonate and fit the core sound Lars and Kirk brought him. He often took his ideas from literature and intentionally avoided hard rock clichés, like sex and drugs. There seems to not be one literature reference on The Black Album, and on subsequent albums like Load and St. Anger, he had shifted to songs about self-doubt, internal rage, and writer’s block. He may have stopped reading entirely, actually.
Whereas Metallica had opposed the idea of MTV and making music videos (their first three albums went platinum without one), they tested the water with “One” off of …And Justice For All. The band’s manager and their music label (Elektra) encouraged the band to reach a wider audience. The band relented, and they filmed black and white footage of them performing in a warehouse, and the band’s management came up with the idea to juxtapose it with clips from the 1971 film Johnny Got His Gun, which was based on a 1939 anti-war novel that inspired the song. The band actually bought the film outright to avoid paying licensing fees every time the video was played. Despite initial reservations, the band was extremely happy with the final product.
The band was also reportedly happy with the video for “Enter Sandman”, despite having the look and feel of MTV du jour. The band is only filmed using strobe lighting, with motion that seems to only use about 3 frames per second. The imagery is straightforward: a little boy sleeping, an old man scowling at the camera, someone running towards the camera as a semi-truck crashes into a parked car behind him. “Just run off the road!,” we used to say. Aside from “Enter Sandman”, director Wayne Isham’s most famous work included Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and Pink’s “Get the Party Started”. If you’re like me, you probably asked, “Those songs had music videos?”
“Enter Sandman” was cool, but in a way that felt slightly out of step with the visual culture of the moment. It had a dated quality, but there was charm in how hard the band was clearly trying—despite having little experience in the medium. Hardcore video enthusiasts were satisfied just having a reason to experience this style of music on TV, which was more or less what the band had hoped for anyway.
The song’s legacy peaked with its usage at Yankees games. Famed relief pitcher Mariano Rivera used the song as his entrance music from the late ’90s until 2013. Every time he entered Yankee Stadium, the song blasted over the speakers, a ritual heard by the most widespread fan base of any baseball team. The band leaned into this, even playing it live at Rivera’s retirement ceremony.
While Metallica continuously breaks out the song for awards ceremonies and events like their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2009, the song will always be associated first with sporting events. “Enter Sandman” is a mainstay at WWE events (to represent certain wrestlers’ aggression/intimidation), although it is often played at patriotic events for the military. Unlike most “most popular songs” by bands, Metallica seems to have never gotten tired of promoting it.
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