On my way to work today my ipod randomly drew a mediocre Metallica track (“2x4”) as I was speeding down I-45 to reach the offices of my summer internship. As I grasped for the next button, I realized I actually like this song. I started evaluating my appreciation for Metallica and discovered that I have specific memories from my childhood related to most of their back catalog (pre-St. Anger).
”Enter Sandman” – The first time I remember hearing this was while we were on vacation in the Ozarks at the Alhonna Resort. Back when drug companies would pay for us we used to stay at the Four Seasons or Tan-Tar-A, but after the laws changed my parents wouldn’t shell out the money for the nicer resorts and instead we ended up at the hospitable but less than luxurious Alhonna. They had a Bar & Grill at the middle of the facilities with a lone pool table that I used to spend a good portion of the day monopolizing. Back then I was into a lot of random music and would program Pearl Jam or STP into the jukebox when I could, but some redneck guys came in and cued up “Enter Sandman.” The first time I heard the guitar lick when he sings “Off to Never Never Land!” was the coolest thing ever. It’s never sounded as cool as it did that day.
“Of Wolf and Man” – My best friend in middle school was Brian Wise who was a huge Metallica fan (and basically the reason I listened to them so much at the time). I ended up seeing Metallica at Lollapalooza and Kemper Arena with him, which looking back was total overkill but still fun. We used to shoot hoops in his driveway and he’d bring out his boombox and set it on the car while we’d play. When “Of Wolf and Man” came on he set to explaining the complex symbolism of the song. It took around ten minutes for him to truly impart, but ended with a much more concise summation. “So, basically he’s a werewolf,” said Brian. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“Master of Puppets” – Back when Usman still lived at home I remember the lot of us (Shahryar, Usman, Mansoor, etc.) would spend the night over there and his dad would take us in his old yellow four-door sedan (which I do not recall the make of) and we’d go to the carnival themed theater off of 119th and Metcalf (since closed). On the way home from the movie (I think it was a movie with Sinbad…Usman loves Sinbad) I commandeered the radio and “Master of Puppets” was on the radio. Shahryar immediately sang the praises of the main riff. I didn’t want to come across as a total meathead in front of Uncle Latif, but when Shahryar started waxing intellectual about it I thought it was okay to leave it on. Looking back this song would not have hurt or helped my case with Uncle Latif. I think at the time he was more concerned building an in-house HMO staffed by his children .
“Ain’t My Bitch” – I used to spend a lot of time at the Siddiqui’s house while I was at Rockhurst, because they were ridiculously hospitable and also within walking distance of the school. I’d basically take over Naveed’s room whenever I was there, which was nice of him. I can’t imagine how he was okay with that or how I wasn’t a complete jerk for doing it. But we’d listen to music in his room and Ibad and Mubeena would come in and we’d all sit around the room talking. I put on Metallica and Ibad (who was still super young back then…and come to mention it he’s still a kid to me) lost it and started slam dancing (it’s not even a slam dancing song) and then yelled “It Ain’t My BITCH!” Mubeena was not happy. So I went about explaining that the song was not about misogyny, but about how in the time between the Black Album and Load all the bands that came out were whiny and emo and Metallica had come back to the musical world and on the first song on their new album they said, “It Ain’t MY Bitch! Everyone else is whining! We’re totally not.” She responded in motherly tones, “I don’t care what it means, I don’t want my little brother yelling bitch in my face!”
“Fuel” – Going to school at UMKC for roughly a third of my life, I became pretty familiar with a semi-permanent fixture there, Danish Hasan. In recent years the man has made an amazing transformation from the No Fear-branded, Classic Rock loving simpleton to complex, exasperated disaster, but when I rolled into the med program in ’99 he was somewhere in between. We used to spend a lot of time driving his Civic around and listening to old Eric Claption (you had to be there). But one of D’s favorite jams was “Fuel.” I had asked him what his best driving music, to which he responded: “You just want to gun it when James screams ‘Gimme Fuel Gimme Fire! Gimme that which I desire!’ and just smoke everybody around you. It’s freakin’ awesome, man.” This is also back when Danish used to jump around in his seat during action movies. Those were the days I tell ya.
“Sad But True” – Besides listening to the thundering riff on my dad’s huge speakers in the basement, this will always represent the time I spent living with my sister going to KU. I was listening to two songs for the month of October 2004, Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “Estranged” and Metallica’s “Sad But True.” I assumed this simply annoyed the hell out of Shaheen (and it probably did) but one days she walked out of her room and in tune with the chorus she belted out an inspired “You Know it’s SAD BUT TRUUUUUUUUE!” Good times.
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