Love at First Hearing! Metallica’s One.
A poem about the first time I heard a song from Metallica, it was the One!
It was the 2009 edition of ”Top 10 of Everything”,
I was thirteen years old at the time,
“Top 10 Most Played Metal Songs of the Year”,
And there it was in that list.
I can’t remember it’s exact rank in the list,
it has been so long since then,
but the artist’s name was what drew me to it,
it was METALLICA!
What a “Metal” name! METALLICA!
I don’t even remember any of the other 9 songs,
this was the ONE I wanted to hear, my first Metal song!
How do you even describe the feeling?
Even today, a dozen years after I first heard it,
I fantasise about playing this song to an audience,
and blasting those riffs,
those machine gun riffs.
How do I describe the feeling, of that backstory?
even today I get nightmares about Johnny,
what a miserable life that is,
to be alone, having life pumped into you!
How do I describe the feeling, when I hear that opening melody!
when I hear the slow upshift in tempo,
when it finally gets heavy! Oh it’s beautiful!
How do I describe the feeling,
that hits me like waves for 5 minutes,
when those “machine gun” thud-thud-thud starts blasting,
those lyrics, those guitar sounds,
So melodious, and so metal!
And while these emotions are hitting me,
right there in a corner of my mind, I still think about Johnny,
can’t get him out of my head,
I just hope he finds peace and closure, somehow!
There are songs that you want to un-hear,
just so you can feel them again for the first time,
experience the feeling to hear them for the first time,
this is One of them.
If I had a time machine, I’d go to Seattle in ’89, or Mexico ‘93,
Metallica: thank You for giving the world One.
Thank You for listening to my poems— Shakespeare wannabe :-)