Metallica

Metallica is an American thrash metal band whose music has repeatedly referenced the Cthulhu Mythos. The band was reportedly turned on to the work of H. P. Lovecraft by Cliff Burton, its bassist from 1982 until his death in a tour bus accident in 1986; Burton has been described as "an HP Lovecraft-reading, piano-playing homebody who loved beer, Mexican food, pot and acid."Metal Hammer, "Cliff Burton: The Life and Death of the Ultimate Metalhead", by Mick Wall, September 20, 2022. When guitarist Kirk Hammett joined the band in 1983, he and Burton bonded over a mutual interest in the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.Rock Celebrities, "Kirk Hammett Reveals Cliff Burton's Favorite Film", by Serra Ozturk, October 28, 2022.
The Lovecraft influence first emerged on the 1984 album Ride the Lightning, which closes with a nearly nine-minute instrumental, written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Burton and Dave Mustaine, called "The Call of Ktulu". The song is said to be inspired not only by "The Call of Cthulhu" but by "The Shadow over Innsmouth" as well.Monster Legacy, "Metallica's Lovecraftian Songs", by the Monster Philologist, March 4, 2013. The variant spelling was reportedly intended to make the song title easier to pronounce.Black Gate, "Cthulhu in Metallica", by Mick Gall, May 1, 2017.
The following album, Master of Puppets (1986), features "The Thing That Should Not Be", whose lyrics (written by Hetfield) contain multiple Mythos references. The title comes from At the Mountains of Madness, where a shoggoth is described as "the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist's 'thing that should not be'". Many of the lyrics seem to describe Cthulhu, a "Great Old One" who "watches, lurking beneath the sea", whose "timeless sleep has been upset". The song condenses the "much discussed" couplet attributed to Abdul Alhazred in "The Nameless City" and "The Call of Cthulhu":
The lines "Hybrid children watch the sea/Pray for father roaming free!" seem to refer to the human/Deep One hybrids of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". The song also refers to "Crawling Chaos underground," using a common epithet for Nyarlathotep.
"All Nightmare Long", the second single from Metallica's 2008 album Death Magnetic, is another song that drew inspiration from the Cthulhu Mythos, as Hetfield explained in an interview:
The lyrics take the point of view of the Hounds:
The most recent Metallica song with a Lovecraftian theme is "Dream No More", on 2017's Hardwired… to Self Destruct. Like "The Thing That Should Not Be", the lyrics evoke the Great Old One Cthulhu:
The allusion is made explicit with the repeated refrain of "Cthulhu awaken" (rhymed with "Sanity taken", "Seething damnation", "Winged salvation" and "Death by creation").AZ Lyrics, "Metallica Lyrics: Dream No More".
==External Links==
*"Metallica's Lovecraftian Songs" at Monster Legacy
*"Cthulhu in Metallica" at Black Gate
==References==
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