When I was younger, I watched the music video of “One” by Metallica on MTV (before they stopped playing music videos), and thought it was the weirdest video. My eight-year-old self didn’t quite understand the gruesome happenings of World War I and I was awestruck by the music being perfectly placed over a difficult video. “One”, at its core, is an anti-war song that portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded – arms and legs blown off by a landmine, blind and unable to speak or move – begging God to take his life. His only hope is to devise a way to communicate with the hospital staff. In the music video, he jolts in the hospital bed, spelling “Kill me” in Morse code.
Peaking at No. 35 in the US Billboard Hot 100 from 1989 to 1994, “One” surely is not Metallica’s greatest song, but it is perhaps one of the more musically interesting. With Metallica being dubbed as one of the founders of heavy metal, “One” opens with a somber melodic guitar line played by Kirk Hammett. The song then transitions into a 3/4 time signature that transitions back and forth between 3/4 and 4/4 for the remainder of the song until the riff-rich bridge. One thing I’ve always enjoyed about this song is how increasingly powerful the song becomes until it’s a complete guitar-fest with an overwhelming amount of rhythm guitar underpinning a ripping guitar solo that could only be performed by one of the very best.
Regardless of your opinion on who the best metal band is, or what the best metal song is, I think we can all agree that “One” is a masterpiece which no other band can touch. Being one of my all-time favorite songs, “One” has a very special place on each of my rock playlists and deserves every bit of reverence and appreciation it gets.
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