On this day (January 22) in 1989, Metallica debuted the music video for “One” from their album …And Justice For All. The first of three versions of the video features clips from a 1971 anti-war film.
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Metallica was at the forefront of the thrash metal movement throughout their first three albums. Kill ‘Em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master Of Puppets are hailed as thrash classics that helped codify the sound of the subgenre. Their sound began changing with …And Justice For All, though. Following the death of original bassist Cliff Burton and the addition of Jason Newsted, the band began aiming for more mainstream success.
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They released “One” as the third and final single from Justice. And it reached No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was their second Top 40 hit and their first since “Master Of Puppets” found the same peak position in 1986.
Metallica Borrowed Scenes from an Anti-War Film for “One”
“One” is a tale of anguish from a horribly wounded soldier. In the song’s chorus, he explains that a landmine took his arms, legs, vision, hearing, and ability to speak. As a result, he is essentially a prisoner in his mind, which leads him to beg for the release of death.
James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich found inspiration for the song in the 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun. The novel, written by Dalton Trumbo, depicts a World War I soldier who suffered the same fate as the song’s narrator. Trumbo also directed the 1971 film adaptation of the novel. Metallica used scenes from the film for the “One” music video.
According to Songfacts, Hetfield was able to point to the specific passage in Johnny Got His Gun that inspired him to write the song. “How could a man lose as much of himself as I have and still live? When a man buys a lottery ticket, you can never expect him to win because it’s a million-to-one shot. But if he does win, you’ll believe it because one in a million still leaves one. If I’d read about a guy like me in the paper, I wouldn’t believe it, [because] it’s a million to one. But a million to ONE always leaves one. I’d never expect it to happen to me because the odds of it happening are a million to one. But a million to one always leaves one,” the passage reads.
Featured Image by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
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