Song of the Day: Metallica, "To Live is to Die"

For almost as long as I've been a Metallica fan, I've been witnessing Cliff Burton anniversaries. This year he would have turned 50, and this week marks the 26th anniversary of the bus crash that took his life.

Listen to this recently unearthed bass track to "Orion." It never gets tiring to hear how much loveliness goes into a document as brutal as Master of Puppets.



Most Burton tributes include his signature piece, "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." My favorite quote is metal journalist Cosmo Lee's, "(I)magine yourself as a new band. You are unveiling yourself to the world for the first time. You have 10 songs to do it. You’re going to hand one of them over to your bassist? You do, if he’s Cliff Burton."



But "Pulling Teeth" doesn't make me mourn Burton. It's kind of like the guy who insists that his friends throw a party at his funeral. The intentions are good, but people need to mourn when they're dealing with a loss, and a whiplash-inducing bass solo isn't going to cut it. Rather, I turn to "To Live is to Die."



"To Live is to Die" is the strangest song on Metallica's strangest good album, ...And Justice for All. Burton doesn't play on it at all, just four men mourning him. Nearly ten minutes in length, it moves from an acoustic medieval melody into staccato prog-metal riffage, over hills and valleys before resting in its original form. Complicated solos, progressions and a brief spoken word performance drop in with no regard for conventional song structure. The lyrics, attributed to Burton, are adapted from 17th century German poet Paul Gerhardt. On print it's an oddball, but on tape it's as affecting as any funeral mass I can think of.

In one second, all the instruments cut out, giving way to a movement so delicate that it barely exists. The guitars and drums take several measures to pick themselves up and work back into the earlier progression. Sometimes it sounds like the most compelling moment in Metallica's history. ...And Justice for All is almost uniformly criticized for its dry production, particularly the decision to haze new bassist Jason Newsted by burying him in the mix, but one gets the sense that "To Live is to Die" could overcome any kind of engineering mess.

Song of the Day: Megadeth, "Hangar 18"

Someday, I'll devote an entire blog to Megadeth.



Everything about "Hangar 18" is spectacular, from its Area 51-inspired lyrics and video to Dave Mustaine's deadly arpeggios in the first movement. But let's get real--"Hangar 18" is all about the solos in the second movement. We've all heard metal solos, and unless you went to Berklee or Jacobs, you never put on a song just to hear somebody shred. Unless you're listening to "Eruption" or "Hangar 18."

"Hangar 18" thrashes out with an electric "Dueling Banjos" of sorts, two metal virtuosos facing off in a improvisational war. You don't have to play guitar to tell who's who. Every one of Mustaine's lightning blues scales is answered by one of Friedman's thunderous sweep picks, and vice versa. The rhythm section takes the reigns between solos with that nifty drum-based progression (known by anyone who's seen "Hangar 18" live as the "Me-ga-deth" part.) I'd put Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman's fireworks here up against anything mentioned in David Fricke's 100 Greatest Guitarists--a list which neither Mustaine nor Friedman made, inexplicably.

The kind of talent, chemistry and individuality expressed on the "Hangar 18" solos is not something you hear much of in metal these days. As Cosmo Lee of Invisible Oranges once wrote of this song, "Pairs like this are why individual solo credits in liner notes were invented." It didn't last, of course, and watching Mustaine belittle Friedman in interviews these days reminds me of Axl vs. Slash. No matter how much Mustaine talks down Friedman and talks up the new guy who plays Friedman's solos note for note, he'll never convince us that Megadeth is better off without him.