Episode 14 –James Hetfield – The Poet

My subject in college is English Lit and the current lectures on ‘Appreciation of English Poetry’ and ‘Literary Criticism’ have been very enlightening. As usual, I relate everything that is taught to Rock music and it has helped me understand poetry and lyrics better. Last term as a part of my assignment on American poets, I studied the lyrics of Bob Dylan – who would have thought talking about Rock n’ Roll could fetch you top marks!

Coming to the point, last week I saw Metallica’s ‘Black Album’ on Classic Albums. While talking about song writing, Lars Ulrich said about James Hetfield – “He would sit down and count every syllable while coming up with lyrics. He would not simply string words together. It was structured.”

Words are very powerful instruments. Words have sounds, the way we use them, the choice of words, their arrangement play a pivotal role in making or breaking a song. Continuing with the example of James Hetfield, the chorus for ‘Wherever I may Roam’ goes like this (as you all know)

Rover, Wanderer
Nomad, Vagabond

Call me what you will…

If you pay attention to the details and the stylistics, here is what you’ll find – each line from the chorus has 5 syllables where the first word in every line has 2 syllables and the remaining have 3. ‘Rover’ ‘Nomad’ and ‘call me’ are Iambic which means the first syllable is stressed and the second unstressed. ‘Wanderer’ ‘Vagabond’ and ‘what you will’ are Dactyllic where the first syllable is stressed followed by 2 unstressed syllables. It actually deciphers the meaning of the song. The Iambs and Dactyls which represent falling action denote the ups and downs of life on the road. It shows how hectic and stressful touring can be (which is what the song is about) Hetfield rhymes the sounds – ‘ver’ -‘rer’ and ‘ma’-‘va’… It would not have the same impact had it been – “Vagabond Rover, Wandered, Nomad call me what you will.”

For some, this may seem like a boring exercise but the next time somebody says ‘Metallica is awesome’, you can bag the title of Fan No.1 because what you state will not be just your personal opinion, you can brag about your intellectual skills by saying how you have actually taken the efforts to appreciate how Really Awesome Metallica is!

Well, as for me, my love and Respect for Metallica has increased.