. . .
“[A]boutness is all but terminal in fiction. Stories aren’t about things. Stories are things”.
– Bret Anthony Johnston, “Don’t Write What You Know”
Substitute “fiction” with “music”, and “stories” with “songs”, and I’d agree 100%. “Aboutness” is why most political music is dull. It’s also what makes me distrust strong authorial intent. I support art, and I support artists insofar as they are vessels of art. But unless artists are actual people in my life, i.e., friends, I care about them as much as other people not in my life: not much.
So it’s both interesting and immensely boring to see people try to grok James Hetfield’s lyrics in “Harvester of Sorrow”. Websites exist for this: songfacts.com, songmeanings.net. Do people realize that once they figure out – or think they figure out – what something’s “about”, that they’ve killed its magic? You feel smug when you think you know what something’s about. You stop engaging with it. You move on to the next object of magic-killing. You acquire great taste and become insufferable company.
I’m happy not to know exactly what Hetfield’s singing about. Getting not the gist, but a gist is fine. “Harvester”, as with the rest of …And Justice for All’s latter half, dives into a very disturbed psyche. “One” hit that bulls-eye through craftsmanship; “Harvester” does so with air. On a record that feels like a futuristic dust bowl, the song offers, if not lushness, at least some layering. 25 seconds in, a wind noise whooshes through, which is a big deal considering the album’s oppressive dryness. Production! Imagine that! And the outro weaves clean tones amidst the distortion; the intro to Slayer’s “213″, another soundtrack for a tortured psyche, comes to mind.
“Harvester” was the first single from AJFA, which makes sense. It’s the second shortest song, and it’s groovy as hell. Riffs on upbeats: that’s totally a groove metal thing, except groove metal hadn’t been invented yet. So instead we get a relentless push-push-push, bracketed by the serpentine main riff. “Harvester” is the Metallica song my body responds to the most. “Sad but True” has a similar hulking groove, and I’m partial to that song, too. It’s a trip, it’s got a funky beat, and I can commit atrocities to it.
. . .
“Harvester of Sorrow”
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. . .
METALLICA: THE FIRST FOUR ALBUMS
“The Shortest Straw”
“One”
“Eye of the Beholder”
“…And Justice for All”
“Blackened”
“Damage Inc.”
“Orion”
“Leper Messiah”
“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”
. . .
There’s a sad parallel between Cosmo’s final posts and the songs he’s writing about… so much goodness packed into such economic space. Language that’s both tight and dense, but well worth unpacking and fully exploring. Strikes that balance between the tried and true economy of words and evocative mystique. Like the best ‘tallica songs, this is as good as we’re likely to get. New blood of IO: take note, motherfuckers. Bring the hurt.
There is nothing I can say that you have not said better.
Agreed.
“You acquire great taste and become insufferable company”, one of the best sentences I’ve read on this site
Is it just me, or are these articles getting better? I absolutely agree with the position taken. Also, the song is one of the best metal songs ever written.
Thank you again, Mr Lee.
I got hooked on drumming after listening to this song for the first time: the explosive drum fill intro, then the calm, ‘clean’ passage, then the rumbling ascension into the song (strangely resembling the intro of… Boney M’s “Last Flight for Venus”, so good that it will be used again on “Enter Sandman” with slight changes), then the explosive fill again and the song’s first false-start verse, then the song proper. Wow! But then the solo, and the drum fills again. Re-wow! And the false fade-out finish, and the abrupt end.
So, I guess that this song will be a testimony of Ulrich’s drumming skills, and will confuse the people who like to spit on him.
@ Wlash Jones:
“…Cosmo’s final posts…”
What’s that? Have I missed an episode or something? Why ‘final posts’??
Genuinely sorry to break this to you, Akash: http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2011/09/thank-you-2/
OK…
Well, I’m amazed to see that you’ve quoted Adrien Begrand as one of your influences, and let me tell you that I’m still following his writings on popmatters.com.
Thank you again for your eye-opening prose, it’s been a pleasure and a duty to read you here.
All the very best in your new pursuits, Sir!
I’m sorry but the anachronisms in these reviews are alarming. Please do the artist (in this case Metallica) justice (no pun intended), by comparing the song to its actual possible influences….and not songs that came out 3 or 6 years later. This was previously done when a Metallica song was compared to Fear Factory, who didn’t release their first album until after the Black album for christsakes. I dig the writing but it’s like me comparing Ludicra songs and their impact, to some yet to be reknowned techno black metal funk band that will be christened the saviour of music of the 2010s…
WHAT THE SHIT ARE YOU ON ABOUT NICK?
WHAT HE SAID! I can’t make heads or tails with Mr. Nick’s comments. Anywho, I read this review and thought of me being the high school junior who had a really cool friend that graduated a year prior, and I just saw him at a party. As per usual, he’s wearing a rad old-school thrash shirt and still significantly cooler than me. Good to see you again, Cosmo. Come back again soon. [Please note, however, I think the new staff has done a great job in their nascent days. Still the only blog I visit {nearly} daily.]
And when I say “had a really cool friend,” I mostly mean someone that I consider to be a friend because I wanted to be friends with him, but he may know my name starts with a “T,” and that’s about it. Wishful thinking.
The mention of Slayer’s “213″. He views it as an anachronistic comparison.
I know im a few days late here but thank you KH
Wah nah nah nah nah nah!
Wah nah. Wah nah. Wah nah nah nah nah na-a-ah.
Is this song evil or what? Just pure rage seething under your skin. I fucking love it.
And Lars’s tribal beats are in perfect unison with that primitive murderer which has been bequeathed into every one of us.
[i]Harvester[/i] is the closest thing to an acceptable song off [i]Justice[/i], and for this it is probably my favorite on the album. No excess, no repeating ’til oblivion. It’s very straightforward, very gettable, even if subconsciously so. It’s a song you somehow come to understand and value without thinking.
“Drink up, shoot in,
let the beatings begin.
Distributor of pain,
Your loss becomes my gain!”
Fuck yeah.
‘drink up, shoot in, let the beatings begin’
one of my absolute favourite hetfield lines in my second favourite metallica song- one of their best ‘headbangable’ songs which i bought as a 12″ single on the day it came out with its killer b-sides (‘the prince’ and ‘breadfan’)
and don’t forget to noisily clear that thick phlegm from your throat!
Was that thing (EP, 12″, bootleg, whatever) called something like “The Good, the Bad and the Live”?? Because it contains a live version of ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ that has and ending that differs significantly from the usual/current live versions that we’re given to hear: Kirk’s solo is prolonged and segues into a strange finale.
no, it wasn’t- it was the official single release, although only on 12″, not 7″ or cassette, and only here in the UK, whereas the US had ‘eye of the beholder’ i think
but there was a release called ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ but i think it was a fan club thing so i never got my hands on it- wasn’t a bootleg anyway
i know that one of the singles they released had a live version of ‘harvester…’ where the band missed out a whole verse almost without missing a beat- they deliberately released it as a b-side coz it was such a monumental fuck-up which almost went unnoticed
“…a live version of ‘harvester…’ where the band missed out a whole verse almost without missing a beat…”
Ah, ok… got a copy of that 12″ thing then, and it’s actually entitled “The good the bad and live”: At the time, I only knew this version of ‘Harvester…’, and when I discovered the studio version much later, I found it to be very strange: first the suffocatingly dry sound. Then the additional verse. Then, the absence of the now-obligatory/normal phlegm-clearing before the last verse. Then the solo and the finish.
That was a time when unwrapping a new record was like a opening magic chest, your heart would be pumping wild in anticipation of what will land in your ears, to be accustomed to a new acquired taste…
…infanticide
“To see into my eyes, you’ll find where murder lies (infanticide).
Yes, I have a feeling this song is about a serial killer. Wayne Gacy?
One of my all time favorite Metallica songs.
couldnt agree more with your thoughts on being happy to not know what hetfield was singing about. as a matter of fact, i didnt know what most of his words meant when i got this album in the 4th grade or so (schizophrenia, dementia, etc).
my mouth just knew how to make the sounds it needed to sing along, while bypassing my brain’s need to think about ‘meaning.’ im always happeiest listening to music this way.
Cosmo — This: “Do people realize that once they figure out – or think they figure out – what something’s “about”, that they’ve killed its magic? You feel smug when you think you know what something’s about. You stop engaging with it. You move on to the next object of magic-killing,” reminds me very much of a Facebook “debate” I had with some former tweaker-cum-born-again hometown peeps and other assorted Christian folk a while back. I was arguing that we should feel lucky that the world is so cool and also fucked and just appreciate its mystery as a sign of something great without having to label it “God” or whatever. Of course, this didn’t really get through, and instead I was condescending asked to have my soul saved. Nice to see pretty much the same idea applied to Metallica lyrics, and nice to read one of your posts!
And Tom B., you are hilarious. I totally know that friend! (or my own version….)