. . .
“Leper Messiah” is funky. Not like James Brown, but like “wow, this is weird”.
First, there’s the beginning. We hear a 1-2-3-4 verbal count-in and a lead-in hi-hat; we’re practically at rehearsal. Such a painterly gesture hasn’t occurred since “Bass solo, take one” in “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth”. On an album that’s very produced – see the backwards guitars at the end of “Master of Puppets” and the fade-in of “Orion” – it’s interesting to bring us out of its space and remind us of its human vessels.
An aside: Flemming Rasmussen dialed in the very ’80s-sounding Ride the Lightning, the low-end-heavy Master of Puppets, the low-end-light …And Justice for All, and the clatterinjg sludge of Covenant??? Someone should interview him.
But we quickly stop thinking about cowardly lions and Napsterly Danes. After a proggy stumble of an intro, the song adopts a stumpy groove that’s just plain weird. How many metal bands write songs with that feel? Some black metal bands do the “stumpy polka” thing, but otherwise most metal bands either have lead boots or heavy feet on the accelerator. Metal bands don’t tend to write this sort of “in between song”, the type of track meant to fit between others on an album. I don’t know if Metallica wrote “Leper Messiah” with this in mind, but it’s a perfect transition between the fast thrash of “Disposable Heroes” and the slow grind of “Orion”.
After the stumpy groove comes, well, more groove. This is my favorite part of the song. Two open E power chords, emphasizing the offbeats – OK, this really is kind of funky. I think of this as “groove metal” before there was such a thing. What seals the deal is the reverse effect (reversed guitar? reversed reverb) that creates a slight sucking sound going into the actual riff. It’s a small but delicious tension that the riff resolves. Cliff Burton’s bass bubbles happily below; he always played what was right.
Then the song gets going, shifting up and down in and covering a lot of ground in under six minutes. I love the twists and turns, but I love the lyrics even more. As a kid, I never really paid attention to this song (as probably was true with other youths, bangers like “Battery” and “Master of Puppets” were more salient). But now as an adult, with my disgust for organized religion growing daily, I feel lines like this quite deeply:
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you’ll get a better seat
I think that every time I see a cathedral.
Unlike other metal bands, Metallica never beat the anti-religion drum that hard. They tended to focus on the earthly ways that humans oppress other humans. Maybe that’s why “Leper Messiah” is so effective. It brings spiritual matters down to an earthly level. Instead of telling (e.g., “fuck your God”), it shows. We’re not talking about heaven and hell; we’re talking about cold, hard cash. So long as cash – and religion – rules everything around me, “Leper Messiah” is relevant. Sadly, this song is for the ages.
. . .
“Leper Messiah”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
. . .
METALLICA: THE FIRST FOUR ALBUMS
“Disposable Heroes”
“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”
“The Thing That Should Not Be”
“Master of Puppets”
“Battery”
“The Call of Ktulu”
“Creeping Death”
“Escape”
“Trapped Under Ice”
“Fade to Black”
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”
“Ride the Lightning”
“Fight Fire With Fire”
“Metal Militia”
“Seek & Destroy”
“No Remorse”
“Phantom Lord”
“Whiplash”
“(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth”
“Jump in the Fire”
“Motorbreath”
“The Four Horsemen”
“Hit the Lights”
. . .
Think the funky nature of the song and the Bowie reference have anything to do with each other?
you think that’s a Ziggy Stardust quote? Interesting in that it would mean the song would loosely be based about a fallen guitar hero rather than religion.
Hetfield probably just liked how those two words sound together.
I’ve always loved this song. My e-mail address in high school was ___leper_messiah___@hotmail.com, and in my computer programming class a partner and I made a music video out of the song in GW Basic.
That said, I think your analysis of the lyrics is off. I never interpreted it as anti-religion so much as anti-cult and anti-personality-centric religious leaders, similar to Death’s Spiritual Healing taking on charlatans. I’ve never once been bothered by lyrics that take on the misuse of religion, and that’s what I think this is.
I have to agree, the lyrics don’t seem to be anti-religion as much as they are anti-cult or anti-evangelist.
Even stranger than the counting opening is that reference at the end where you can hear someone say “that’s it(?)”.
For the sake of nitpicking, I believe that’s a 5-count at the beginning of the song.
Actually, if you really want to be nitpicky, it’s a 6-count; Lars counts to 5 and the first hi-hat hit is 6.
That said, I want to thank Cosmo for writing up this awesome series. It has made me find all sorts of cool new things in these classic albums. Most recently, Lars saying “five” on that count-in, which I noticed for the first time earlier this week after the “Disposable Heroes” entry inspired me to take my Puppets CD along for my commute to work.
Great job, Cosmo!
Scratch the first part of that; I’m an idiot, it’s a 5 count.
Yes, it’s a 5 count and I’ve never figured out why Lars did it that way. There’s no absolute reason to count to five to start that riff. Obviously Lars is an idiot and is telegraphing the disdain he showed for his fans in 2000.
I’ve always figured the 5-count was some kind of musician in-joke. It always makes me giggle, despite the seriousness of the song.
I definitely love this song a lot less than I do any other track on Master of Puppets.
It’s too… ordinary. Yes, that’s a very ordinary reason, but it’s true. The song doesn’t really contain anything too interesting or exciting, and doesn’t come even close to transcending reality the same way that the other tracks on the album do. Criticising preachers of faith is somehow too specific and unrelatable.
That said, if I can endure the boring sludginess of the first three minutes, I will have a rocking time enjoying the section kicking in at 3:15!
JJjoFa ypznexxqideb
Wu-tang!
Kinda the weakest song on MOP but still better than other band’s weak songs.Doesn’t get really good until that riff at 3:15.
I’ve always thought this song was sort of proto-sludge. Good pick.
Mormons are required to donate 10% of their income to the church. I never tried to share these lyrics with my parents. Ha!
I always heard it as groove metal too. Not my bag, and this is where MOP derails for me.
i always felt that this was the last song that mustaine had an influence on due to the similarity, in my mind, of the main verse riff being along the same lines as the riff from ‘wake up dead’ that comes after the ‘…the other, other lover, diana!’line- not exactly the same, i’ll grant you, but with a similar swinging, stomping feel
never used to like this song but over the years have come to love it- partly because it has an odd structure, what with there being no unnecessary reprise of the vocals after the middle section, no redundant repeat of the chorus, just that false ending heralding the next wonderful track…
masterpiece
I loved this song when I first got MoP. As a kid who worshipped Metallica and was forced to go to church every Sunday (a mormon church at that, with the 10% tithing that Miskatonic mentioned), I always took this song as anti-church and it made me feel less alone in the world.
It’s my least favorite on the album these days though.
I seen them fuck this up at Donnington, top tune though
The lyrics obviously are anti-cult, not that much anti-religion. Whatever, it’s always more effective to have a song here and there bashing those ideas than having a full-time blow at it like a lot of metal bands these days. The effect gets lost in the mess. This song and “The Thing That Should Not Be” are my favorites from this album; probably because they get less praise and aren’t played by all kids having a guitar class. Groove Metal, maybe, yes.
it’s anti organized religion and money grubbing preachers,not cults…
This is… not really their best songwriting. It’s a song with a limping grove and then there’s a cool thrash tune buried in it. In the end when they switch back to the groove again, it feels so awkward.
But this is extremely hard, trying not to get lost within a song but to stick to the theme (whatever it might be).
As a songwriter myself this feels like two songs in one. I like the middle part, the rest I could do without.
I always felt that the middle section is the part that’s more ordinary, while the surrounding sections of groove are what make the song interesting.That riff seems kind of odd and choppy compared to the fast and heavy hitting riffs that are all over the album.
This song is a top rocker. Real top rocking on this one. Massive riffs and good singing,real hard energy,and really turning it up to bring the heaviness.
Many years ago, I believe I read that Hetfield’s parents were Christian scientists and this song was about the corruption he saw within religion and his frustration being pulled in both direction on what to believe. I think when this album came out was around the time televangelists were REALLY big and asking for money non-stop on TV.
Regardless, I love the groove of the riff and it’s so simple yet effective. All these posts are making me brush the dust off my Metallica CD’s
It’s our job as the listener to interpret the lyrics anyway we want to. If that’s what the song was about to the dude, that’s what it was about. Perception is everything!
This song exemplifies the fact that I feel that “Master of Puppets” is the most Mercyful Fate-like of all the Metallica records. I too feel like the weird, sick pounding riff with the sucking sound, along with “The Thing That Should Not Be” present Metallica at their weirdest. They were never this odd again, never this close to entering the territory that Voivod would soon enter. The fast part in the middle reminds me so much of Mercyful Fate and Accept, so European sounding. I always liked the song but appreciate it so much more now. I think it’s the weirdness, the “sounds like no one else on Earth” quality that sets “MoP” apart from “RtL” as the defining pinnacle of Metallica’s career.
This song is massive and vicious. I love it.
And, what else this song shuold be about, according to you, please?
Sorry, but this song is fully, explicitly anti-cult:
Spineless from the start,
sucked into the part
Circus comes to town,
you play the lead clown
Please, please
spreading his disease,
living by his story
Knees, knees
falling to your knees,
Suffer for his glory
You will
Time for lust, time for lie
time to kiss your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
and you’ll get a better seat
Bow to Leper Messiah
Marvel at his tricks,
need your Sunday fix
Blind devotion came,
rotting your brain
Chain, chain
Join the endless chain,
taken by his glamour
Fame, Fame
Infection is the game,
stinking drunk with power
We see
Time for lust, time for lie
time to kiss your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
and you’ll get a better seat
Bow to Leper Messiah
Witchery, weakening
Sees the sheep are gathering
Set the trap,
Hypnotize
Now, you follow
Time for lust, time for lie
time to kiss your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
and you’ll get a better seat
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie!
It’s not even between the lines, it’s there yelling it at you, in your face
And what about the end of the song: like an infinished demo. In fact, the first time I listened to it, I was completely wrong-footed by the end, the moreso with the pause at 05:35, then the same last bar to end the thing abruptly.
Reminds me of one of Slayer’s song that ends almost the same way, with a short but very intense drum fill, then four short bursts.
if anyone that’s arguing “it’s about cults not religion” can offer up a distinction between the two other than “one has more followers than the other” I’d love to hear it. all religions began as cults and grew (more often than not stomping out competing cults).
“all religions began as cults and grew (more often than not stomping out competing cults)”
Spot on, bro. Spot on.