To Live Is To Die – A Tribute Etched in Metal

n this episode, Michael and Sebastian delve into Metallica's iconic song 'To Live Is To Die,' exploring its significance as a tribute to Cliff Burton, its emotional depth, and the intricate musical composition. They discuss the song's lyrics, the guitar techniques used, and the drumming choices that shape its sound. The conversation also touches on the evolution of Metallica's music, the contrasting styles of James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, and the rarity of live performances of this poignant track. Ultimately, they reflect on the song's ability to encapsulate the stages of grief and its lasting impact on fans and musicians alike.

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Transcript

Michael (00:06.734)
Well, good evening and welcome back to another fine program of mandatory music. have, you know, we got busy lives. We did take a week off unintentionally, but hey, whatever. But, we are back. We're happy to be back. We're going to talk some Metallica tonight because you know, that's. Well, there's that because why not? Because we, that's it's our, our favorite band. you know, Seb came up with a great idea of playing.

Sebastian (00:14.748)
Yes.

Sebastian (00:25.638)
Why not?

Michael (00:34.85)
The song that was on in the background, we're going to talk a little to live is to die, which.

Sebastian (00:38.514)
Yeah, you may have heard it quite a bit on our earlier podcast when we did Metallica based stuff. But yes, To Live Is To Die is a song. For me personally, it's lived in my mind recently. I've been to more celebrations of life in like the last couple of months than I care to be comfortable with. And so for all intents and purposes, the song is a eulogy for Cliff Burton. It was the last song that Cliff Burton had a writing credit for. It's the last song.

Michael (00:53.506)
Hmm. Yeah. Right.

Sebastian (01:07.294)
On the injustice for all album, which is the album after cliff It's sorry second the last song. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. Dire's eve is the last song second last song by mistake but yeah, it it's I think it's the longest song that they recorded until enumerata came out I believe if i'm not mistaken or it was supposed to be From my yes from my

Michael (01:14.574)
Yep, all good.

Michael (01:28.192)
It's up there, yeah, it's up there.

Sebastian (01:33.308)
research, it was actually supposed to be longer, but they had to cut it to fit it onto the CD requirement lengths. Because if I'm on the Metallica Wiki page and it said the original recording, the song is 10 minutes and 48 seconds, but the last minute was cut in order to fit the album within the length limitations of CDs at the time.

Michael (01:53.592)
Hmm. I wish we could get a version of that. Yeah, just as it does. I'm assuming it's just all acoustic guitar anyway. That's kind of my guess. And so that was probably an easy choice to say, you know what? This has been going on for long enough. So let's just, a haircut.

Sebastian (01:58.409)
here like the last minute, because it kind of fades out right at the end. So.

Sebastian (02:12.722)
Yeah. So the song, the song is to live to die. It's from injustice for all, which is in my mind, I'm not sure if you share this opinion, Mike or not, but I think this is the most advanced record they have ever recorded in terms strictly in terms of music theory and stuff that you put into a song. Cause every single song on that album is just loaded with riffs and stuff. And to live is to die in my belief.

Michael (02:30.242)
Yes.

Sebastian (02:42.788)
in for the research that I've done is a bunch of Cliff Burton riffs that were never used, that they all just amalgamated into a song. Arguably one of the most beautiful, serene songs they've ever recorded. It has a definite hard edge to it, but the softness is so painful, painful, but somber and melancholy as well. And the clean guitar parts is probably some of the best clean guitar parts they've ever used in a song.

Michael (02:47.554)
Yes, yeah. And they just sort of.

Michael (03:12.106)
Mm-hmm. I would, I would agree with that. Hmm. It's we'll get there. but I do want to hit on one thing you said, which I'd never, I was doing a bit of looking around today and you brought up a eulogy, which I never, I never thought of this song. I don't know why as a eulogy. I just thought it was more of a tribute, which kind of is the same, same kind of idea, but a eulogy is such a stronger word. Like it's a, like,

Sebastian (03:13.182)
In my belief like that middle section of the song. I mean we can get to it. We can go through the whole song. But yeah

Sebastian (03:34.152)
Yeah

Sebastian (03:38.718)
It's an homage to Cliff Burton, really, yeah.

Michael (03:39.734)
Yeah, like you're saying goodbye to your friend and you're just really giving everything you got. So I never, yeah, it's just funny how I just never thought of it that way, but it is like the saddest song.

Sebastian (03:50.107)
Interesting. Yeah.

Sebastian (03:53.864)
they've ever recorded.

Michael (03:54.926)
I think, if you think about it, it could be the saddest song anyone's ever recorded, whether they knew it or not, right? that, that middle section before it goes clean with all those layers of guitars, it's, I don't know for me anyway, when I listen to it, I hear, I hear crying and I hear sorrow and sadness. And it's just like, if you could, know, if you could be the guitar, the guitar would be tears would be streaming out of the fretboard. And yeah, it's just.

Sebastian (04:03.709)
Yeah.

Michael (04:23.72)
Absolutely crazy. but let's do you want to do the lyrics are short. Obviously we don't have, let's go there first because they're interesting. Cause it's two, it's four lines. It's two lines of, somebody else, which I had his name here, just professionalism at his best. Thank you. so he did, when a man lies, he murders some part of the world.

Sebastian (04:25.98)
Yeah, this go ahead.

Yeah, let's go. Let's go through it.

Sebastian (04:41.936)
Yeah, his Paul, Paul Gerdhart.

Michael (04:50.924)
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives, which, my God, that's, you know, like it's deep. Those, those are some.

Sebastian (04:59.186)
Just listen to that line, when a man lies, he murders some part of the world. That's a very heavy lyric.

Michael (05:03.852)
Yeah. So obviously dishonesty in the world and all that trust is, but then you can take those words and put it in the, in that band context of, okay, well, your most trusted confidant is gone and he can take lies as he's okay. You can take a literal as a liar or when a man lies, like he's just sort of, he's dead. I don't know. That's kind of how I, I,

Sebastian (05:23.408)
Yeah.

Sebastian (05:32.028)
Yeah, that's a good actually analogy, because lie down like he lies down for good. That's interesting. I never looked at it that way because I always thought it was like a legitimate lie or fib. You know, that's yeah, but that's an interesting take on it for sure, because that makes sense too. Right. So.

Michael (05:35.49)
Yeah, that's kind of how I always looked at it was no.

Which it probably is legitimate lie, but I-

Michael (05:48.482)
Yeah. Cause they all saw him there anyways, whatever. And then this next two lines, all this, cannot bear. and cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home or sorry, all that, all this, I cannot bear to witness any longer and will and cannot the kingdom of salvation. No, those are written by Clef. Those are just.

Sebastian (05:53.02)
Yeah.

Sebastian (06:07.452)
Yeah, it's fascinating because the first part was written by the poet, Paul Gerhardt, and then Cliff added the last part in. So it's an amalgamation of the two.

Michael (06:14.54)
Yeah. And apparently they were like just saying that he always, it was just always around. was just there. Yeah. So it's like this talk about a true tribute. use the, you know, they emptied the, proverbial, you know, the well of what Cliff had left to, left to offer. Right. And. But, okay. So yeah. So lyrics are done that that was easy. Those like there is four lines.

Sebastian (06:21.97)
He used to say it all the time. Yeah.

Sebastian (06:35.836)
Yeah.

Sebastian (06:41.63)
And it's literally just, it's at like the 730 minute mark and it goes, it's when it goes back into the heavy guitar out of the clean part, it just goes in for this like little poetry section. It's very hard to hear properly though, because it's subdued, which is on purpose, right? Cause it's not, they don't want the vocals to be fully out there. Spoken word.

Michael (06:45.602)
Yeah.

Michael (06:49.411)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (06:55.276)
It's quiet. Yeah.

Michael (07:02.476)
No, and it's spoken word and supposed to be quote unquote an instrumental. So, the, and I always still, because people say, well, it's not an instrumental, there's words in it. I'm like, come on.

Sebastian (07:08.636)
Yeah, yes.

Sebastian (07:14.844)
The words are there for like seven seconds of the song of a nine, almost 10 minute song. for, well, you can call it as a instrumental. Come on. Come on.

Michael (07:17.74)
Yeah. Yeah. Come on now.

Michael (07:24.844)
Yeah. So, you know, I remember like when I first started listening to these guys way back when, and I'd hear the song and that, that acoustic intro, which I don't, I don't remember the chords off top of my head. yeah. And and yeah, it's all in a minor and I could never play it, but it's just such a neat variation instead of using just your regular a minor down at the bottom of the top of the fretboard.

Sebastian (07:39.39)
It's all in A minor.

Sebastian (07:51.664)
Yeah, the...

Michael (07:54.06)
You're either they've moved it up a couple octaves to make it that incredibly haunting sound on a nylon string guitar, which.

Sebastian (08:02.14)
Yeah, the intro is a little tricky to play. It's not easy.

Michael (08:05.592)
Were you ever able to do it? Probably. Yeah.

Sebastian (08:08.25)
at some point. Yeah, but the middle section is the best part to play the the clean guitar in the middle. I love that part. Yes. But it's tricky because they're all bar chords, right? That started like a seventh fret and go to the 10th fret and all that kind of stuff. It's a very tricky passage to play. It's not easy. So yeah, it definitely takes anyone that's

Michael (08:13.75)
Yeah, where the A minor is down in this, in this, in the standard position.

Michael (08:27.682)
And don't know you're like me, bar chords are my enemy, my hands.

Sebastian (08:36.35)
ever been on a quest to learn how to play guitar, especially like acoustic or nylon guitar, you need some constitution in your fingers and some strength in your fingers to be able to bar properly. You know, it's, takes some strength in there. So it's not, not easy to consistently do that. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely easier on an electric guitar than because the strings are softer and lighter than like a acoustic.

Michael (08:44.876)
Yeah. yeah. Absolutely.

Never that was never that. Yeah. I was never that patient.

Michael (08:57.368)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they're closer together and your hands don't have to stretch as far. So you don't need that, that dexterity. So yeah. So then it morphs in, I was a Cliff Burton intro. I'm sure I'm assuming that was Cliff Burton intro. Cause the whole song is him that morphs into this really cool. Actually I have one nitpick with that intro, which is, which has always bothered me ever since for the last 35 years. it doesn't need drums.

Sebastian (09:03.45)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Sebastian (09:14.024)
Pretty much, yeah.

Sebastian (09:18.952)
Send it.

Michael (09:28.512)
I understand. I understand. Like that album was a flex on everybody's part. So everybody needed to be in and Lars has always been the drummer that plays, whether it's the hi-hats all over the place, everywhere, all the time, and you can't get rid of it or it's just...

Sebastian (09:28.839)
Yeah.

Sebastian (09:43.666)
You know, I feel about Lars in the hi hat usage.

Michael (09:45.708)
Right. Especially on 72 seasons. guess just a lot of it's unneeded, right? Yeah.

Sebastian (09:50.142)
Can you please stop the hi hat for the love of Pete? Who's Pete and why do we love him? But anyways.

Michael (09:53.394)
And I don't know, just, we love Pete. but it's just, that's such a, it doesn't, it doesn't need drums.

Sebastian (10:02.834)
You know, honestly, I think if they recorded that in the black album or later, you wouldn't have heard drums in the beginning part.

Michael (10:07.168)
A ball by the tulip, no, no, stop. No, you're not playing nothing. Like it would be no drums.

Sebastian (10:11.718)
Yeah, you know, think it's also a product of their lack of maturity at that point, because they didn't have the confidence to break away from metal yet. So Injustice for All was like their last true fully metal album. And, know, the black album was way more hard rock. You know, it has metal elements and some songs are like actual metal songs, but you could you could see the pathway and then load and reload for sure hard rock albums. I don't consider them metal albums, but I don't think they had

Michael (10:32.61)
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian (10:41.522)
the confidence to not do anything without drums or without, you know, like a metal sound. And yes, this is a ballad, it's slow, there's a lot of clean parts, but the heavy parts are heavy in the song. So it's just, yeah. It's a metal eulogy, yeah.

Michael (10:54.348)
Yeah. And like I'm a tour right now, it's the drums. Yeah, they're just so they're just so not necessary. But what else? The way it's been.

Sebastian (11:01.702)
It's not even that there's a lot of drums. It just seems like, why can't you just let that clean part ring, like just lead it in and then it fades out, then the drums can happen. So yeah, I get you. I get what you're saying.

Michael (11:06.338)
Just let it ring, man. And all you can really, yes, like come on, man. Like just put the drums away for, and I understand they, that's like exactly what you just said. There was no maturity there. And I don't think Lars was comfortable enough with his, his, yeah, with his ego to not, I got to be heard all the time. And it's just, you just need to learn to.

Sebastian (11:25.71)
ego because he's like, gotta be the drummer. yeah.

Michael (11:35.778)
dial it back because once it gets into the heavy part, yeah. But I will, I sort of double down on the drums a little bit. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna crap on them, but this is sort of one of the more laid back drumming songs on the record. Even though like, you know, it's not crazy fast and no, and like the beat is, is relatively like, cause Lars doesn't play anywhere around normal, but this is kind of the closest.

Sebastian (11:37.726)
You can calm it down a little bit. You don't need to be. Yeah.

Sebastian (11:51.728)
Yeah, it's not crazy fast. There's no blast beasts. There's no double bass.

Michael (12:04.874)
On this record anyway, he gets to playing, okay, I'm just gonna sort of sit back and let the other guys do the thing and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna hold it down. And he had to because, well, there's no bass either, but.

Sebastian (12:15.504)
Yeah, I'm going to create the space that drum and rhythm space for the guitars and the melody lines to shine. It's not like, you know, when you listen to one, for example. Yeah, there's wonderful guitar in that song, but the drums are very prevalent in that song. Like you notice the drums, especially in the last part of it. Right. And there Lars has been known to.

Michael (12:22.776)
Yeah.

Michael (12:37.704)
yeah.

Sebastian (12:42.462)
have a bit of an ego when it comes to his drums and he needs to be heard and he needs to hit them on a tin can instead of with the snare turned off or whatever, right? Like, so he has this thing where it's like, no, my drums aren't loud enough, pump them up. And so, yeah, you're right. He's taking the standard back approach to what more of a classical drummer in a band would do where he's serving the song. You got to make a shirt, Mike. Serve the song.

Michael (12:47.704)
Yeah, let's just.

Yes, exactly.

Michael (13:05.9)
Yeah. Yeah.

serve the song, right? I think we should, totally should. But yeah, but then it gets into this really cool heavy riff that sort of sits on F sharp and they don't play a ton in that sort of F sharp position a lot. think maybe battery they did, but it wasn't a ton, right? If I'm trying to think of up to that point, there wasn't a lot of songs, you know.

Sebastian (13:14.322)
buy it in our Etsy store.

Michael (13:36.75)
starting on that four and two. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that cause one and centarium and all that and pay the block. But.

Sebastian (13:42.823)
Yeah, that middle part like so there's two parts to it before it shuts down into the clean guitar. There's like the first part of it where it's all like bendy strings and it's almost like wailing like, well, and I will. And then it goes into the other part where like it isolates the notes. And it's like it's like it's not wailing anymore, but it's like crying out in agony almost. So.

Michael (13:49.677)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (13:54.634)
Yes. Yep.

Michael (14:07.938)
Yeah. Yeah. Cause even, yeah, like you say after that, yes.

Sebastian (14:10.748)
You know what I mean? Like there's like the part with like all the bends and stuff right before and then they're like down, down, down, down, down, down, melody line where transitions to and it's like, yeah.

Michael (14:14.316)
Yeah. Near, near, near. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's, it's, it's starting like the waterfall of tears are starting. Cause until like it's, it's angry, it's pissed off. then that they dub, sort of speed up the riff and go, then they get it faster and they're getting more. think they're getting more and more mad.

Sebastian (14:24.775)
Yes, yeah.

Sebastian (14:36.336)
It's funny that you say that because like now that I'm kind of having this, what sort I'm looking for, revelation of the song, it's almost like the whole song trend versus the stages of grief, like what you go through, right? It starts somber, you know, then you have anger, you have emotion, you cry, you know, encapsulates all of the stages of grief in the nine minute song.

Michael (14:43.373)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (14:50.211)
Yes.

Michael (15:04.408)
Yeah. And I think that middle part is acceptance. It could be right of, right of like, okay, we've got it all out and now we're just sitting and thinking about it. And then that just pours out. I curious.

Sebastian (15:09.0)
Could be, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sebastian (15:19.08)
There's something I learned and I'm just gonna be very vulnerable and real with you, Mike, because we both suffer from churning as human beings. And I learned a long time ago, you can't suppress your emotions. Like you have to be able to experience the emotions fully. And it's a problem for me. I know it's a problem for you as well. We're both kind of similar in that regard because we wanna block and be stoic and not deal with the emotions, but you have to.

Michael (15:24.206)
Please. Yes, yes we do.

Michael (15:41.224)
yeah.

Yep. You can't.

Sebastian (15:46.748)
You have to deal with them safely because they're going to come back if you don't deal with them.

Michael (15:50.831)
yeah, and they'll come back with a vengeance and make your life hell.

Sebastian (15:53.615)
magnified because you've never dealt with it in the moment. know, vulnerability ran over and let's get back to the song. Also, I deflect with comedy if you haven't noticed. Yeah, okay, so.

Michael (16:00.707)
Yeah, right.

Michael (16:10.302)
so I'm listening, I've got, the box set version going in my, in my headphones right now. And I've got, some television, I riff tapes going on and I think, I'm not sure it just says they're James's tapes. I don't know if I'm assuming if Cliff was in the room, but the intro, which I'm assuming he was, cause this was like a cliff thing. It was written in 86. So clearly cliff would have been there. Cause this doesn't wait. James would have written that.

Sebastian (16:31.217)
Yeah.

Sebastian (16:36.974)
mean, he could have wrote the melody line and then James just kind of transposed it or or figured it out on the guitar. The other thing that's fascinating is this one of the rare times that both of them play solos in the song, because James plays the solo in the clean part. And they do that in a couple of other songs, they do that in Nothing Else Matters, I believe, where James plays the solo in that. And Kurt plays the beginning solo, at least on stage, he does.

Michael (16:40.62)
Yeah. Right.

Michael (16:48.898)
Yeah.

Michael (17:03.138)
What? Yeah.

Sebastian (17:05.234)
But I think James recorded the solos for it and he just handed over the solo to Kirk when they do the live thing. But neither here or there. this is like one of the. Sorry.

Michael (17:07.734)
Yeah, James does the solos. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, even your one of your other favorite songs, Halo on Fire, that's a James.

Sebastian (17:19.102)
Yes. God, I love that song. That song is all about the end. It's all the journey to the end. know? Yeah.

Michael (17:21.613)
I know you do.

Michael (17:25.94)
it's absolutely, that's what it's all about. And then that then so yeah, well, we get to we get through some good. What do you think of the solo work of Kirk on the song or this? Not even the whole album. Let's just go with. Yeah.

Sebastian (17:37.054)
I think it fits. I think this, this, fits so well in this. Yeah.

Michael (17:42.296)
So when he still actually wrote solo, I guess he still wrote solos back then.

Sebastian (17:45.791)
Yeah, it's funny. was like, re listening to the podcast we did about our top guitarists and like I stand my like if we did this 15 years ago, Kirk Hammett would have been in my top five. But his body of work recently over the last couple of albums, I've not been impressed at all. It's like he just doesn't care anymore. It's like he doesn't put an effort in to really figure something out that's really needed.

Michael (17:50.83)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (17:59.138)
without a doubt.

Sebastian (18:13.502)
the song. He's just like, I'm just gonna go in and jam and whatever comes up, whatever comes out. And then he gives Lars a whole bunch of options and Lars pieces it together going, I guess this is the solo. Do you know what I mean? That's like, it's kind of frustrating because like, you know, you're supposed to be one of the best heavy metal guitarists ever to live, but you're not living in that space anymore. But maybe that's okay, because he's in his 60s and he's rather be a Zen surfer boy in San Francisco.

Michael (18:14.167)
Yeah.

Yeah, let's live in the moment.

Michael (18:23.406)
Yeah, I'm not a- I don't know. Yeah.

Michael (18:33.111)
No.

Michael (18:39.159)
Right. People.

Sebastian (18:39.538)
you know, and reading comics, horror comics and whatnot, and just doing the Metallica thing when he needs to do it, right?

Michael (18:45.792)
Yeah, like people change, right? Like it's...

Sebastian (18:48.624)
I honestly think that he does not have the same relationship with music as James does. Whereas like for James, it's therapy. And for Kirk, his therapy is the surfboard and the water. So he does the music because it's a paycheck. I don't mean that in a negative way. He does it because it's his job and he enjoys it, but it's not therapeutic for him. Yes.

Michael (18:55.5)
Yeah, Kirkus is more... Yeah.

Michael (19:04.778)
No, like he loves the instrument, not so much the, okay, I need to get what's in my chest through my guitar and out to the world, yeah.

Sebastian (19:15.164)
Yeah, so he's not playing guitar to help his mental health, whereas James lives in his guitar and his riffs for his mental health. That is his gateway to a better psyche, whereas Kirk's all about being zen and going surfing and doing that stuff for his mental health. which is interesting actually. So.

Michael (19:19.307)
No.

Michael (19:22.806)
Yes. Yeah.

Michael (19:33.101)
Yeah.

I tell, I actually it's in the end now that you put it all that, which is a neat way to look at it. But you know, I think for a lot of people, guitar is not about therapy. It's about, you know, it's a lot of people want to master the instrument. They want to, yeah, they want to kick ass. They want to play loud. They want to do all that stuff. And you know, when, Saturani is one of your teachers, you're going to be, you know, more shreddy than normal. And, um, yeah.

Sebastian (19:48.446)
Kickin' ass!

Michael (20:06.294)
I'm sorry, was looking something up. Keep talking.

Sebastian (20:07.644)
No, it's all good. I do have some little facts here. So.

So do do do, have you played this? Yeah, so this is the last song that Metallica released with Cliff Burton having a writing credit in. And I know it's technically not an instrumental, but it's also the only instrumental track with Jason Newstead playing bass in it.

Michael (20:31.155)
it is.

Michael (20:36.13)
What, there's bass in that song?

Sebastian (20:38.439)
They're supposed to be.

Michael (20:39.5)
supposed to be. cause if you listen to them live when they used to play the middle part live, what Jason played is absolutely, it's on the Seattle, the Seattle 89 live thing. Like that's part of his bass solo is, is that, the most, it's the most beautiful baseline that he wrote for that. And it's just, it's gone. Like, it's just, sorry, volume down. Sorry, I don't care what you played. We're just going to have James and guitar and Kirk. That's, that's fine.

Sebastian (20:52.306)
Yes.

Sebastian (21:02.204)
It's Yeah.

Michael (21:09.442)
We don't need to, but it's just, like, wow, what a shame. Like I just misguided, right? Just, yeah, I don't know.

Sebastian (21:16.274)
So I don't know how many, I don't think they've played this. I think they've only played it like once or twice, right?

Michael (21:20.724)
Once. Once. They did it once in 2011. At the 30th anniversary. No, they haven't. It's the 30th anniversary show. It the only time they played it in full. Have they? I think you're wrong.

Sebastian (21:26.663)
they've no they've done it more times than that. I think

I think they've done it twice, but I could be wrong. Artist statistics. Let's go. Where is... All right, I'm just going look up for Metallica. That works, right?

Michael (21:45.154)
But he, either way, once or twice, they, they play it very little. Cause you know, the song has a lot of baggage and I don't think they want to relive that every night. They'd rather, well, especially nowadays, they'd rather play Calcutta and Orion, which are probably a little happier. Yeah. yeah, it was night, night three because they opened every show with an instrumental. So I was night three. those are, those are cool shows. You haven't watched them there. It's a lot of fun. A lot of guest singers.

Sebastian (21:54.075)
No, you're right.

Sebastian (21:57.917)
No, you are right. They only played it once. That was at the 30th anniversary show, right? That's what you said. Yeah.

Michael (22:13.89)
John Bush and then Ozzy came out, Lemmy.

Sebastian (22:16.968)
So here's an interesting fact. So to Live or Die, they played one time. They've also played Sweet Amber one time. They've also played Mama Said one time. According to Setlist FM, so they played Hate Train one time. They played Fixer one time. They've played Escape one time. We all know how James felt about playing that song. He freaking hates that song, yeah. And that is...

Michael (22:19.342)
Sure.

Michael (22:31.363)
Wow.

Michael (22:38.195)
He hates that song and I don't blame him. I love that song but it's not great.

Sebastian (22:45.274)
Other than doing like a whole bunch of covers only one time, they those are the only yeah, everything else they've played more than once. So but that's just I would have thought that they would have played Mama said way more than one time.

Michael (22:54.807)
Interesting.

Michael (22:59.374)
So did I, because I know like, well maybe as a band, know Hetfield played it by himself on Jules Holland back in 96, but he was just all alone. It was just a solo performance.

Sebastian (23:05.255)
Yeah.

Sebastian (23:08.88)
I can see why they've only played Sweet Amber one time. Maybe they tried it and they're like, yeah, this song is terrible. We should never play it. They might have not played that. I'm really surprised with Fixer, but I think that is like a vocal challenge for James. Yes. And he's like, I can't do this live. So he's probably like.

Michael (23:11.158)
the song. I don't even think they play My World.

Michael (23:20.726)
It sounds like it's a hard song to sing. You gotta be up, or they'd have to tune it down probably to C sharp just to get, to make it easier on them, but they don't think they like doing that. But yeah, anyway, so we get into the middle section of To Live Is To Die with this fingerpicked beautiful chords, if I remember, it's A minor, G, and I don't know what else. I can't remember what.

Sebastian (23:33.637)
Yeah.

Michael (23:48.238)
Cause it's been a thousand years. used to be able to play it, but not very well, but I used to be able to play it, but I don't remember. Cause yeah. Cause that guitar behind my shoulder there does not get touched very often anymore. just, I pick it up. I get mad and I'm like, suck. And then I just turn, just put it back down and it's more of.

Sebastian (23:53.582)
It is... I just had it up here, my god.

Sebastian (24:06.182)
Yeah, it goes the clean guitar is a minor G, E minor and then D minor F, F because it has like little trills and stuff like little flair stuff. And then then the second part is a minor G, E minor and then G. So the tails are different on the second passage through. But I mean, what like a minor for some reason is just such an amazing

Michael (24:13.015)
Okay.

Yeah, does.

Michael (24:21.921)
Okay.

Michael (24:34.626)
The sad cord. Yeah.

Sebastian (24:35.694)
sad chord and it works very well on a guitar because it's basically the open fifth string and so it's very choral in sounding because you play a lot of like a lot of the chords that fit in the structure of an A minor scale are very open and they're very easy to maneuver through because it's in the same hand position you just got to shift your fingers a little bit it's not complicated there's a reason why Metallica uses A minor and E minor for most of their songs and do you ever notice that a lot of their ballads are like

Michael (24:41.784)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (24:50.208)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michael (25:01.4)
Well, yeah.

Sebastian (25:04.284)
either in B or A minor. Like a lot of passages in there because they like to go down to that open fifth string to do A minor chords. So.

Michael (25:06.06)
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah.

Michael (25:11.758)
Like, cause like you say, it has that beautiful just it's full. sounds as, yeah, it's this amazingly full sound.

Sebastian (25:14.522)
One is like that. Not one, that's the wrong song I'm thinking of. Fade to Black is like that, Sanitarium's like that, Talisidai's like that, and they all kind of fit the same structure in terms of having a clean A minor start to their slow parts in their song. So.

Michael (25:21.229)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (25:32.224)
Yeah, I was gonna say mama said starts way that way, but it's D minor.

Sebastian (25:38.406)
Yeah, it's pretty close though.

Michael (25:38.764)
Whatever. Well, D minor tune down half a step, whatever it would be. I don't know. Whatever. But it's in the D minor position. So yeah. So, and then we get a James Hadfield solo, which, you know, up until that point, there were a few and far between. There was a couple, master puppets in the middle. Yes.

Sebastian (25:43.646)
C sharp.

Sebastian (25:53.745)
I just want to say one thing. I think James is criminally underrated as a soloist. People do not even refer to him. He doesn't like to do solos, but when he does a solo, they're always brilliant.

Michael (26:05.708)
Well, which way, yeah, you, talk about halo. talk about nothing else matters. We've, know, there's the middle section of master puppets. Brilliant. Yep.

Sebastian (26:12.434)
They do it by design though. He doesn't just jam it out. There's a purpose to why he constructs that solo for that particular song because he really feels like he needs to say something musically in a solo, right? But he can shred like he knows how to do solos, right?

Michael (26:17.179)
yeah. Yep.

Michael (26:23.02)
Yeah. And there's, well, there's the big difference between the two of them. Like one likes to improvise. The other one is so regimentedly not programmed, but he's, you know, he's got the plan. Like there's always, there's a reason there's the plan in this. he's, think hopefully now he's relenting on the plan a little bit, but whatever. just make, you know, I'd like to just, well, I guess that was load and reload a lot of jamming and no.

Sebastian (26:35.622)
Yeah, there's a plan. That's a good he wants to go. Yeah.

Sebastian (26:43.774)
Alright.

Michael (26:52.152)
Cause I listened to some of the stuff on the box set and it's like, how does this shit make it on an album? Like, it's just not good. Like it just wasn't.

Sebastian (26:52.557)
yeah.

Sebastian (26:57.95)
There's a lot of like, they're just releasing it for the sake of releasing it, but like.

Michael (27:00.812)
Like when they were jamming, like, yeah, like when they were jamming cure and it's like, yeah, this is awesome. No, it's not. Like it's, it's not good. Like it's just something I'd write when I was.

Sebastian (27:12.252)
I think they shot themselves in the foot by trying to do a double album because the Metallica in the past up until the load recordings, they hit gold with every song they pretty much constructed, but they took their time. Eight songs, they had eight songs on the second album, the third album, right? It wasn't a lot. Nine, I think was on Injustice for All. I could be wrong. But they took their time to craft each song.

Michael (27:22.499)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, they wrote 12 or 10 or eight or nine. Yeah.

Michael (27:34.122)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know you're not, you're right.

Sebastian (27:40.895)
to the best of the ability. And they started to lose that care in constructing the songs. And they went quantity over quality. And then they just like, well, let's just write a whole bunch of song and then we'll pick like the 15 or the 12 that we like, the best 12 and do an album on it. Whereas in the past, they're like, we're gonna write the song, let's make it the best version of the song we can. Yeah.

Michael (27:40.94)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michael (27:47.054)
I think they got bored of it, to be honest. Yeah.

Michael (28:02.718)
Okay, here's our nine songs and that's it. There was no jamming, no nothing. was purpose. Everything was probably written out like, okay, this is how it is. yeah, the load and reload could be a conversation for another day, I'm glad. Honestly, I don't think it was, besides the instrumental of Ronnie being the work in progress, that was awesome.

Sebastian (28:11.698)
Yeah.

Sebastian (28:19.998)
We were supposed to do that today, but we decided to swerve from that and do this song because I don't think the content is there.

Michael (28:31.928)
There was no vocals. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to make you, make you laugh and look shit, but honestly, listen to the Ronnie in instrumental, no vocal version on camera. What is called, but my God, it is, there's so much cool stuff going on with the guitars. It's just, it's awesome. Cause the song, that song did not need vocals. It really didn't cause the lyrics suck in that song. They really do. They're stupid. Cause it was named Ronnie after Ronnie Vanzana from Skinner and that was like the working title. And then they just decided to leave it as Ronnie.

Sebastian (28:33.235)
Yeah.

I'm not listening to it.

boy. boy.

Sebastian (28:55.646)
If you...

Sebastian (29:02.34)
They have the load remastered box set on Spotify. And there's 233 songs and it says it's about 15 hours of music in in that box set.

Michael (29:06.413)
Yeah, man.

Michael (29:14.988)
Like there's some cool, like there, we'll sit there for a bit. There's some cool stuff. there's, they rehearsed the House of Jack built live, which we, can kind of get why they didn't play it live because it's slow. It's sludgy. It just, it just doesn't fit with anything they were.

Sebastian (29:30.172)
I mean, I will listen to it. I'll go through it and listen to it. I won't listen to every single song, but

Michael (29:35.22)
I wouldn't. Even the demos, I'd probably skip the demos because they sound pretty much identical. Like there's a couple of different versions of songs, like the My Bitch is a little bit different.

Sebastian (29:44.337)
Yeah, like listening to the riff tapes. So maybe we're going to talk about it in the end, but yeah. Yeah, like listening to like the riff tapes is interesting because most of them are only like 30 seconds long. They're just like little snippets of like where their head was at when like, let's record this riff. And to see to see the birth of the song is fascinating because like this is where it started and then this is where it went to. So.

Michael (29:49.814)
No, we're not. We'll just do it quickly. We'll just do, finish your thought and then we'll move on.

Michael (30:03.17)
Yeah. And I like that. Yeah. That's cool. But then you get to like the work in progress stuff or like different solos. like, I don't care. I guess it's the song. The song is done with a different solo. Okay. That's fine. I guess, or.

Sebastian (30:13.714)
Do we need that?

Sebastian (30:19.366)
You know, it's funny though, because 25 years ago, you'd be all over this. Because we lived in that space of like, we need all of the content from this band as much as possible. Yeah.

Michael (30:23.065)
my God, 10 years ago. Yeah.

I was, yeah, give me all the demos, give me all anything work in progress, give me live snippets or a jam, a fixer, anywhere they did it. And I'm like, yeah. And now I'm just like, I don't care. Just give me the song.

Sebastian (30:41.022)
Well, there's too much to do and too much music to listen to where we can't just sit and fluff all all day like we want to get to other things too, right? So

Michael (30:47.416)
Yeah. And I'd rather not, I don't know, like I like listening to other stuff. I don't listen. I'm not listening to this stuff much. Like song songs come on. I love it. Like this morning I was telling you, I listened to this version of master puppets from Quebec magnetic. The most, probably the most amazing live concert film ever. of master puppets, 20 % faster than normal. It's like, my God. Like they just, when they were on a mission and yeah, exactly. And they were just, man, they were on fire. It was awesome. But other than that.

Sebastian (30:55.729)
Yeah.

Sebastian (31:10.012)
Back when they had something to prove, baby. Yeah.

Sebastian (31:16.282)
It is fascinating to go through and look at the alternate names for some of their songs, like Believe was the original cure. Yeah, Moldy was originally Hero of the Day. I don't understand that at all. Like I don't see the reference. Streamline was Wasting My Hate. I think that's...

Michael (31:22.318)
was cure, right? Yeah.

Yeah, it makes no sense. I don't understand. Yeah.

I can go on a limb and say something that song sucks.

Wasting my hate is not good.

Sebastian (31:42.033)
It's short. That's what the that's what it's got going for it. Dude, I like it. I like it's kind of catchy, man. I'm not going to lie down down down down down down down down down. Yeah. Anyways, let's circle back to the end because the beginning is the end and to live to die starts the way it or ends the way it starts.

Michael (31:43.402)
That's the best part about it, it's short. I don't, I've never liked it, I think it's dumb.

I don't know, I was never a big fan of it. know we, anyways. Yeah.

Michael (32:05.866)
It ends. There's a pretty sweet breakdown for we get back into that when it's, you get Lars, this goes straight four four and goes all John bottom on us for a little while. but other than that, you've got some guitar solos. You get the John bottom breakdown and then it just slowly fades out into the.

Sebastian (32:12.604)
Yeah.

Sebastian (32:22.864)
Yeah, I urge anyone that's a Metallica fan to actually, this is a great song. And I know we've said this so many times already in this podcast, but this is a great song to listen to the difference in styles between Kirk and James in terms of lead work. Because you have the Kirk solo at the beginning and then you have the James solo in the middle. I'm just at that part with the Kirk solo. And it's like, it's so obviously a Kirk solo, because it's all up on the fretboard. You know, there's tapping, he's quick. And then James' solo is

Michael (32:37.719)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (32:48.406)
Yeah. And it's just pain. Yeah. It's pain.

Sebastian (32:52.112)
more like a David Gilmore solo where it's all about the feeling of the notes. He doesn't care about like blistering tapping and Eddie Van... It's like the difference between having like Eddie Van Halen shred and David Gilmore shred under your guitar. Like it's two distinct styles. So it's interesting. It's interesting.

Michael (33:04.974)
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's very interesting. But yeah, so that's about that for To Live With To Die. It's just, you know, it's not a song you can listen to all the time, because it puts you in a bit of a somber mood, but that's okay.

Sebastian (33:22.195)
Yeah.

Also, if anyone is learning how to play guitar, I urge you to learn the middle part, the clean part of the guitar. is like, it is one of the most beautiful things you can ever learn on a guitar.

Michael (33:34.242)
Yes. Or even just the main heavy riff. It's easy. It's easy. It's groovy. Like it's it's groovy.

Sebastian (33:38.227)
Yeah.

It's slow enough where you're not quickened in the pace. Like it's very methodical, like the song. It's because you want to speed it up. Yeah.

Michael (33:43.822)
No. Yeah, it's actually hard to play it that the slow as you're supposed to play it. it's, yes you do, but you have to fight the urge, fight the power. But even like, so when I was young, when you were young, I, 75 years ago when the guitar was just being invented, like when I was learning how to play guitar, all I wanted to play were Metallica songs. That's it, right? And that's...

Sebastian (33:54.718)
Fight the power.

Sebastian (34:01.566)
75 years ago. No.

Yeah.

Sebastian (34:10.024)
Same.

Michael (34:11.948)
that it's just, so hilarious to even.

Sebastian (34:15.588)
Actually, Paranoid was one of the first songs I learned how to play because it's so really, it's really simple to play. And so it's like one of the first full songs to learn how to play because it's literally like one riff. It's the same notes the entire time. It's just basically power chords. So, but anyways, go on, finish your thought.

Michael (34:20.333)
yeah.

Michael (34:24.418)
Yeah. That's amazing. Yep. Yeah. And it's just, you know, even like when you say, if you're learning how to play guitar, like Metallica music, if you like heavy music, like a lot of it's hard, sure. But the stuff that's slowed down and they allow themselves to take a breath. That's some of the most amazing stuff. Like you say, the middle part delivers to die. The intro to one, like even with the, with Jameson guitar or Kirk solo or just

all of it or Harvest Your Sorrow where there's not a lot going on. It's just, it's easy. It's very black album-y. It's just cool to learn and then you can play along with it. And it's just like, man, look at me.

Sebastian (35:04.166)
Yeah, so Metallica specifically is really fantastic for guitarists to learn how to play for the reason of the instant gratification of when you learn a riff, because they stand on its own. The riffs are so magnificent. You know, the enter Sandman riff delivers to die clean part master puppets seek and destroy.

Michael (35:17.996)
Yes. yeah.

Yep. Or Seek and Destroy even like playing, my God, Seek and Destroy is an absolute joy to play along with the song.

Sebastian (35:29.572)
Yes. Yes. And so you you have that instant gratification of like, wow, I can actually play this because it sounds like the song. Whereas like if you try to play slashes parts in a lot of Guns N' Roses song, you're like, I don't know what's going on here, because it's lead work, right? And you need the complete band and all of the instruments to really fully flesh out the song to for it to sound like the song, except for a few key things like Don't Cry or the intro to Sweet Child of Mine stands on its own. But with Metallica, the riffs

Michael (35:42.102)
I, yeah, no, I, yeah.

Yes.

Michael (35:50.551)
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian (35:58.108)
that one riff that James Riff is such a forefront of the music that you get that instant dopamine hit of like, my God, I'm playing it. I'm playing it and you feel good about it. anyone's, but you can still, you can still play it, right? So yeah, anyone that wants to learn guitar, learn how to Metallica for sure, or ACDC.

Michael (36:04.812)
Yep, exactly. Yeah, might sound like crap, but I'm playing it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, I some Metallica songs. Yeah, right, all you need to know is some power chords, D and an A, and the odd E, then you're good. Well, actually, that's the one song that's actually tuned differently for ACDC. It is, it's like the E string is F, it's tuned up. It's a weird tuning, but it's really cool. Anyways, I think that's our show. That's it.

Sebastian (36:30.12)
Probably, yeah.

Sebastian (36:35.9)
Yes, yeah. That's it. We'll be back next week with something.

Michael (36:40.878)
something. I don't know, whatever Seb comes up with. Again, it's on you again. Let's do it. So yeah, so that's mandatory music for June the 24th of the 2025. See you on the next one.

Sebastian (36:43.678)
All right, it's on me again. All right, let's do it.

Sebastian (36:52.87)
and we'll see you on the next one.

Michael (36:57.272)
Did you hang up yet? No? Want me to hang up? Okay, I'm gonna hang up now. Okay, bye.

Sebastian (36:58.768)
No, no, Okay. we're doing this, aren't we? my gosh.