{"id":502652,"date":"2026-06-20T14:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/502652\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T14:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:47:13","slug":"metallicas-the-memory-remains-the-story-behind-the-song-and-what-it-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/502652\/","title":{"rendered":"Metallica’s The Memory Remains: the story behind the song and what it means"},"content":{"rendered":"

Metallica<\/a> were up to all kinds of madness in the 90s, from writing the biggest metal album of all time<\/a>, to taking inspiration from U2 and Nick Cave on an album that featured blood and, ah, other fluids on its cover<\/a>, to doing an entire concert with an orchestra, it was a wild time. So it should have been no surprise to anyone that when they when they released their first ever song with a guest feature, it wasn\u2019t with a thrash metal<\/a> peer or a guitar shredder; it was with a 60s folk singer who most of their fans only knew as Mick Jagger\u2019s ex-girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The gap between Metallica’s 1991 cultural behemoth The Black Album and 1996\u2019s hugely divisive Load meant that no one was really expecting new material from the band in 1997. So it was something of a shock to learn that Metallica weren\u2019t actually finished with the Load sessions.<\/p>\n

These records belong together…we want them to be twins<\/p>\n

James Hetfield<\/p>\n

\u201cThese records belong together,\u201d frontman James Hetfield told Guitar World in 1997 when asked why his band were releasing a new album, titled Reload, so soon after their previous effort. \u201cThey should have come out at the same time, but the songs weren’t all done. We’re putting this one out a year later, now that we’ve had time to finish it, but we want them to be twins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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Anyone who was bummed out by the hard rock direction Load had taken the band in and had their fingers crossed for a return to Metallica\u2019s thrash roots on the album were going to be disappointed.<\/p>\n

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\"James\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Mick Hutson\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

“Over the past few years we’ve all really developed our own personalities and our own points of view,” said guitarist Kirk Hammett in the same interview. “In the new songs, you can hear how those four personalities play off each other. We just throw it all into one big melting pot, and when you pour it out, this is what you get.”<\/p>\n

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That meant the influence of the blues, indie, Americana and classic rock all fighting for space alongside Metallica\u2019s trademark heavy metal<\/a> crunch. Metallica themselves were still completely unapologetic about their change in direction, Hetfield giving short shrift to the idea that they were trying to \u201ckill metal\u201d when quizzed by Kerrang! In 1997.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kill a lot of stuff, but we’re not out to kill metal!\u201d he snorted. \u201cI think we’re bulldozing through a lot of crap. The metal monicker is a big question mark to us all: what does it really mean? I think we’ve taken it places that it doesn’t belong, thrown away that heavy metal rule book.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We’ve taken metal places it doesn’t belong<\/p>\n

This desire to take metal to places that it \u201cdoesn\u2019t belong\u201d could not have been more evident than in the first single from Reload, the haunting, lurching hard rock banger The Memory Remains.<\/p>\n

The song had started life as a studio jam between Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich and producer Bob Rock. Hetfield had no lyrics to a piece he was fooling around with and filled in the blanks with a simple \u201cLa-la-la-la”.<\/p>\n

“Randy Staub, our engineer, said, ‘You know what? It sounds pretty cool when there’s no lyrics there,’\u201d Hetfield told Loudwire. \u201c’I’m sure you have a vision of writing lyrics for that part one day, but the “la-la'” bit sounds pretty cool.’ I kinda thought about that for a while.”<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Metallica: The Memory Remains (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Metallica:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Hetfield began to write lyrics about an artist that is slowly being driven insane as their fame and stardom begin to fade away. The frontman soon realised that Metallica could use another voice to accentuate the narrative of the song; it\u2019s here that Bob Rock suggested the name Marianne Faithful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know much about her at all,\u201d Hetfield told CMJ New Music in 1997. \u201cBob Rock introduced me to her, and the stuff that I had heard was the old 20th Century Blues CD, which was really cool \u2013 all the old standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faithful may not have been an obvious choice for a Metallica collaborator, but she was a perfect fit for the song. Having been a prominent folk singer in the 1960s, she had established a cult following, but her popularity had waned in the years since. So much so that to casual music fan in the 90s, she was more associated with her previous relationship with Rolling Stones<\/a> frontman Mick Jagger than she was with her own music. Regardless, Metallica were sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit avant garde, but she had the voice we were looking for,\u201d Hetfield continued to CMJ New Music. \u201cThat weathered, smelling-the-cigarettes-on-the-CD kinda voice. I thought \u2018Fuck! This is exactly what is needed for this part!\u2019 She was the voice, and she was a very intense character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faithful was contacted and was delighted to become the first ever non-Metallica member to sing on a Metallica song. Her raspy, quivering tones juxtaposed with the might of Metallica\u2019s riffs; for all their famous experimentation, this was unlike anything the band had put their name to before.<\/p>\n

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\"Metallica\n<\/p>\n

Metallica played The Memory Remains live with Marianne Faithful in 2011 (Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder\/WireImage via Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in Ireland, living in my little house, when I got the call saying, \u2018This is Lars from Metallica. We want you to do a song.\u201d She told Classic Rock in 2009. \u201cI knew who Metallica were; I never thought they\u2019d want me to do something with them. At first, I didn\u2019t believe it, but they were really serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faithful understood the remit and why she had been chosen, even though she argued that she didn\u2019t entirely fit the stereotype of the song’s protagonist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could understand immediately what they wanted me to do,\u201d she continued to Classic Rock. \u201cI think they wanted the \u2018wounded woman\u2019. Of course, I was never really as wounded as everybody thought, so they had to get over that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was in Ireland in my little house, when I got the call saying, \u2018This is Lars from Metallica.’<\/p>\n

Marianne Faithful<\/p>\n

The Memory Remains was released on November 10 1997, as Reload\u2019s lead single a week before the album dropped. It received mixed reviews, as was expected for what was probably Metallica\u2019s most unusual single to date. Even bassist Jason Newstead gave it a kicking in 2002; when asked if he\u2019d have bought Reload by Classic Rock he replied: \u201cNot if I\u2019d have heard The Memory Remains first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the song did well, charting at number 13 in the UK and number 28 in the US, and when Reload was released, it immediately topped the US Billboard 200.<\/p>\n

Since then, there has definitely been a reappraisal of the song; it has been used in The Sopranos, was a theme for Wrestlemania<\/a> XXVIII in 2012 and has become a staple of Metallica\u2019s live show; the extended \u201cla-la-la-la” as sung by the crowd, taking Faithful\u2019s part, is now as iconic a piece of the Metallica concert experience as fireworks before One or the call and response of Seek and Destroy. <\/p>\n

The mutual respect between Faithful and Metallica continued all the way up to her passing in 2025; she even joined the band one last time to perform the song at their 30th anniversary in 2011, telling Classic Rock that \u201cthey were really great, I really like them. We\u2019re still very good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all of the risks that Metallica took in the 90s, The Memory Remains is one that certainly paid off.<\/p>\n

Metallica: The Memory Remains (Madrid, Spain – July 14, 2024) – YouTube
\n\"Metallica:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Metallica were up to all kinds of madness in the 90s, from writing the biggest metal album of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-502652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}