Fade to Black (song)
| Fade to Black | |
|---|---|
| Metallica | |
| publication | September 30, 1984 |
| length | 6:56 |
| Genre (s) | Heavy metal , power ballad |
| text |
C. Burton , J. Hetfield , K. Hammett , L. Ulrich |
| music | Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen |
| album | Ride the Lightning |
Fade to Black (English for: to fade to black / to disappear in the shadow ) is a song by the US metal band Metallica . The song is the second single from their second studio album Ride the Lightning and was only released on record on September 30, 1984 for promotional purposes.
background
The track is Metallica's first ballad and the first Metallica song to feature James Hetfield singing in a clear voice. Hetfield got the inspiration for this song after the band's equipment was stolen on January 14, 1984 in Boston , including a guitar amplifier that was scheduled for the recording . Hetfield wrote the piece at a friend's house in New Jersey at a time when he was very depressed because the band had been kicked out of their manager's house for drinking his alcohol.
The basis for the song comes from Hetfield, who one day played minor chords as an arpeggio on an acoustic guitar in the rehearsal room . The guitar solo at the end of the song was created spontaneously in the studio.
“I wasn't sure what to play. We'd been in Denmark for five or six months and we got homesick. Since it is a dark song and we were all pretty depressed, I thought of something depressed while playing it. It helped a lot. "
With over 900 performances, Fade to Black is one of the most played songs at Metallica concerts.
content
Lyrically, it's about a man who because of depression suicide wants to commit. He has lost the will to live because he has nothing more to give and no more goals. He can no longer bear the inner emptiness and the agony of hell. Nobody but himself can save him, but he doesn't know why he should try this anymore and finally decides to kill himself.
Music style and production
Fade to Black is one of the so-called power ballads . It is introduced slowly with an acoustic guitar and becomes increasingly massive and faster as the duration progresses. At the end of the song there is a guitar solo by Kirk Hammett . The structure of Fade to Black forms the musical blueprint for the later Metallica ballads Welcome Home (Sanitarium) , One and The Day That Never Comes , which not only follow the same scheme, but all, just like Fade to Black, the fourth song on theirs respective studio album.
The song was produced by Metallica in collaboration with the Danish music producer Flemming Rasmussen .
Chart success
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
||||||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Fade to Black entered the Swiss singles charts at number 100 for one week on August 31, 2008 due to the high number of downloads .
Awards and sales
On December 13, 2012, the song was awarded a gold record for more than 500,000 download sales in the United States .
In addition, Kirk Hammett's guitar solo at the end of the song was voted number 24 of the best guitar solos of all time by readers of the American music magazine Guitar World in 1998.
| Country / Region | Award | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales) |
||
 United States (RIAA)
|
 gold
|
500,000 |
| All in all |
1 × gold |
500,000 |
Main article: Metallica / Music Sales Awards
Cover versions
Fade to Black was later covered by many bands and artists, including Apocalyptica , Apoptygma Berzerk , Boysetsfire , Disturbed (on the album Music as a Weapon II ), Scott D. Davis , The Lemonheads , Sonata Arctica and Steel Prophet .
Web links
- Lyrics with interpretations on genius.com (English)
- Lyrics and translation
- Fade to Black on youtube.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Song facts on encycmet.com ( Memento from November 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ cf. McIver, p. 160.
- ↑ guitarworld.com: Metallica: Talkin 'Thrash ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ metlists.com: Songcounts
- ↑ Lyrics
- ↑ a b Fade to Black in the Swiss charts on Hitparade.ch
- ^ Fade to Black US: Gold
- ^ Guitar World: Fade to Black # 24
