Heavy metal and suicide can make for an unintentionally volatile combination. Ozzy Osbourne released the song “Suicide Solution” on his debut album Blizzard of Ozz in 1980, and five years later he was sued by the parents of a 19 year-old fan who killed himself after listening to the song. The case was thrown out of court, and bassist Bob Daisley later revealed that he was thinking of Osbourne and his addictions when he wrote the lyrics. A decade later, Judas Priest faced trial for allegedly having subliminal messages on the album Stained Class that inspired two young fans to kill themselves. They were exonerated of the ludicrous charges.
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When Metallica put out the song “Fade to Black” on their 1984 sophomore album Ride The Lightning, they received scrutiny of a different sort. It wasn’t about the songs despairing lyrics. The Bay Area group were a revered and rising thrash band whose first album Kill ‘Em All was loaded with heavy tracks. Now they had released a semi-acoustic ballad, and also a more melodic, mid-tempo anthem called “Escape” about asserting one’s independence. While that hardly sounds controversial today, back in the ‘80s for an underground band to go to more melodic made hardcore fans fear that they were selling out. Ultimately, these two songs provided some nice contrast to the other thunderous tracks on Ride The Lightning.
It Wasn’t a Power Ballad
What makes “Fade to Black” so interesting musically is how it contrasts acoustic verses with heavy, wordless choruses, followed by an ominous, metallic coda featuring melancholic guitar soloing from Kirk Hammett. This certainly wasn’t a power ballad about love—in fact, that trend in metal really didn’t kick off until Dokken’s “Alone Again” broke big in the spring of 1985—and Metallica frontman James Hetfield’s morose lyrics took listeners into a dark place.
In 1991, Hetfield told Guitar World “Fade to Black” was “a big step for us. It was pretty much our first ballad, so we knew it would freak people out. Bands like Exodus and Slayer don’t do ballads, but they’ve stuck themselves in that position we never wanted to do—limiting yourself to please your audience is bulls–t. Recording that song, I learned how frustrating acoustic guitar can be. You could hear every squeak, so I had to be careful.”
Dark Thoughts Served as Inspiration
Hetfield wrote the lyrics to “Fade To Black” on a friend’s couch in New Jersey. The friend took in the band after their manager kicked them out of his house because they drank all his booze and broke things. This temporary living situation came on the heels of bad circumstances for Metallica. A U-Haul full of their gear had been stolen in Boston, including a coveted Marshall amp that Hetfield loved, prior to a planned trip to Europe. They were young and still struggling to make it. Things felt bleak, although the frontman told Rolling Stone in 1993 that he was sure he was not going to kill himself. He was just venting. Hetfield later acknowledged how some people might misconstrue the intention of the song. (One wonders if they had been more popular then if outsiders might have also accused them of encouraging fans to end their lives.)
Despite their woes, the show did go on. Metallica made it to Copenhagen, Denmark, a month later to meet with producer Flemming Rasmussen, and they slept in a half-built studio upstairs at Sweet Silence Studios and recorded their second album between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m. when no one else recorded. They were still roughing it in those days. Still, the lyrics for “Fade To Black” were quite intense, starting out thusly:
Life, it seems, will fade away
Drifting further, every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free
Evolving Meaning
Hetfield has noted how over the years the song takes on renewed poignancy due to tragic life circumstances. “Songs like ‘Fade to Black’ or ‘The Unforgiven’—those are songs that morph,” Hetfield told the So What! video series in 2018. “They constantly morph for me. When ‘Fade to Black’ was originally written, this was real. Like, ‘I f–king hate life. Our gear just got stolen, we can’t live our dream, we’re not gonna make it to Europe,’ all these things. And then, obviously, when [bass guitarist] Cliff [Burton] or somebody important in our lives passes, that song pops up. Or like Chris Cornell, [Ronnie James] Dio. … Someone’s passing gives that song new life for me.”
The Metallica frontman recalled how he once saw a young lady in the crowd sobbing as the band was performing the song. “I was attached to the acoustic but I wanted to go over there and, I don’t know, mentally give her a hug or something,” Hetfield told So What! “You know, just give her a wink or like, ‘It’s gonna be OK.’”
Maintaining the Will
During a Metallica show a couple of years back, Hetfield prefaced a performance of “Fade to Black” by saying: “This song ‘Fade to Black’ is about suicide. It’s not a fun subject. We’re not supposed to talk about it, right? But we are. We’ve all felt it. We’ve all known someone who’s been touched by that. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you struggle, talk to somebody, please. Because you are loved, and you are part of the family. You are not alone!”
In its best form, heavy metal has always been a cathartic form of music. It’s a big reason why so many fans collect albums, flock to shows, and bang their heads. It’s certainly a less destructive way of dealing with one’s problem than drugs or alcohol. Taking a look into a dark mirror and seeing what the consequences of such an action like suicide could bring has the opposite effect of what critics think. It allows one to purge those dark thoughts, be free of them, and not be bound by them. The compelling “Fade to Black” is one of those songs.
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