Write About It Wednesdays: Metallica

I have to take it back all the way to childhood today for my first WAIW. If I had a top 10 list of favorite songs, this song would probably fill the coveted No4 position. Fade to Black was released in 1984 which was 26 years ago (shocker) when I had my first Metallica moment at 8 or 9 years young thanks to an elementary school friend who accidentally punched me open and directly on the eyeball while playing “Freeze” and offered to share his Metallica as a peace offering on cassette tape. (i still wish i knew how he got his hands on it). Its the first moment I can remember sharing music and all was forgiven after school. Take notes, boys! Actually, I’m really grateful because I would have come to this much later in life had this little incident not happened (I grew up with a sister and trust me we were not listening to Metallica when we sat around braiding each other’s hair and we most def didn’t punch each other square in the eyeball). I think I pretended to like this song a lot more than I did at the time -- I had absolutely no idea what the song was about but I liked how the guitar sounded. I’m pretty sure my friend tried to explain it to me but as a very young gal, certain life concepts simply did not yet compute and left me thinking that boys talked crazy weird. I did think the music was very awesome however and with absolutely no understanding of the heavy metal cannon, I decided without basis that I totally LOVED it. Over the years I’ve revisited this song countless times and while my understanding of it has obviously changed, the basic sentiment remains. It could have been any song that day, but it happened to be this one. Such an epically depressing eerie song (technically a power ballad), but also memorably beautiful in its own way and after 26 years it sits high on my hypothetical Top 10 simply for longevity. I tried to get tickets when they played MSG this past November09 and was unsuccessful only because I totally slacked on it and I’m kind of scared of TicketMaster if you want to know the truth. But I’m determined to see Metallica live in the prime of my old. Until then, write about it, wednesdays. xx