One

Dear James,

Three posts in a day, it´ll be a miracle if you ever get down to that Bob Dylan advert. Anyway, we just found this on youtube and it´s wonderful. I once wasted good money on Apocalyptica Butcher Metallica but this more than makes up for it. How does one headbang and play cello at the same time? The mind boggles.

The original was written by your friends and mine, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, back in 1988 or thereabouts. The song tells the story of a young man who loses his arms and legs in battle and uses morse code to tell his doctors to kill him. Yes, that old pop chestnut. It was inspired by the 1972 film Johnny Got His Gun. Or maybe they just used bits from the film in the video (here with dodgy Spanish translation). As a direct result of this video, a Metallica fan spat in Hetfield´s face at a post-gig meet and greet. Metallica had sold out by making their first video, after three albums of strict non-sell-out-ness. I wonder if the same fan now uses youtube, or whether he´s seen Some Kind of Monster and is in the mood for some more backstage spitting. That sounds like an awful euphemism. And here´s something I never knew:

"One" was voted as the 7th of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" of all time by readers of Guitar World, placed between "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses (6th) and "Hotel California" by the Eagles (8th).

...And a week later my cousin Amelia deigns to send me this clip on Facebook instead of commenting in the relevant area. Some people! And she lives in Japan and everythinG!