metallica, until it sleeps (1996) / references to hieronymus bosch

themes of uncleanliness & purification in Metallica’s Load (1996)

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metallica / pink floyd / john mayer / @/heavensghost / fariha róisín / elena poniatowska

i don’t think i’ll ever get over how vocal lars is with his admiration/feelings/ thoughts of james and and het is just,,, radiating uncomfortability every time

it sure is discomfiting to watch sometimes ! it's obvious he's uncomfortable with that level of honest vulnerability — why, though, is probably a pretty complex tangle of shit. all his insecurities & fears of vulnerability & the usual emotional constipation plus, maybe, how terrifying it is to hear it out loud.

it's kind of breathtaking to have someone acknowledge how much they need you in their life, & lars doesn't just say it to him, he says it in front of everyone, to everyone — i think that's part of james' discomfort. he's a shy, repressed guy ! intimacy for him is smth private, so lars openly admitting to that level of devotion & attachment is ..... a lot, i think. lars might be the one saying it but it makes james vulnerable too, & there's a point of contention there, because james can't control that

why are you as a man writing blowjob metaphors

i do think abt how james became a very patriarchal figure — ‘papa het’, it’s right there — & abt how ppl respond to that; interviews (post afja) almost universally emphasize his Presence, very commanding & stern (’the father walks out of the room and the room is almost empty’; spaces shape themselves around him) 

i can’t stand james bc he’s said out of his own mouth he needs to be the center of attention and that’s why there was some tension between he and lars bc they’re the same BUT he’s also so so visibly disgusted by being Seen and Witnessed when he’s not in charge of how he’s presented and like girl….me too so sorry to hear it <3

he looked so icked out and rigid in that video lmao the panic must have been bad that night. same behavior when he interacts with fans, he only seems comfortable with his identity when there’s distance but not so much it makes him feel like James Hetfield is somebody hanging over his head. idk how the hell this man ever got married— three cheers for Francesca

i've talked about this before a few times, most pointedly here, but james seems to conflate sense of self with sense of purpose — his purpose of being 'metallica's frontman' developed at the exact age where he became a person (an adult), so to speak, so he's understood that as his self being metallica's frontman. when he can't be that ..... who is he?

i just getting into metallica and im realising that james is quite violent? but its always played off, like in interviews lars would say he was hit by james for not playing right, or that one game with the superfan and the way james would push the guy felt so,,, too harsh, dare i say? and its always played off bc of the smile ( that i, unfortunately, adore quite a lot ) het would do

yep ! it's been commented on before, but only casually, & not with much detail. james' aggression tends to surpass the 'acceptable' boundaries of that hypermasculine culture (which is contestable since it's all very vague, etc. but i think giving your bro a facial scar cuz you were drunk + pissed off is ... too far). additionally bc he gained that kind of rep, it likely further encouraged both the behavior & the lack of reaction to it. don't have much to comment apart from how i find it off-putting & disturbing how little weight it's given

i also want to take the opportunity to point out that james' aggression goes beyond physicality: his use of violent & sexualized language is prominent in a culture that already uses it heavily. there's the obvious examples of him frequently throwing around words like "pussy" "slut" "bitch" & replacing words in songs like "i'm killing you" to "i'm fucking you" in the case of mop, positioning them as an equally violent alternative — but even with much more friendly / less performative cases, he uses the same language. the interaction with lars in ayah ("did they make you bend over, buddy?") comes to mind. it's just .... notable imho

re: phil towle as father figure; while i wouldn't exactly call it fatherhood, he was a presence that disrupted james’ authority (which imo informs james calling him a ‘father figure’ later on). only a father can command a father & so forth

no but seriously the unforgiven trilogy is just: the shame & self-hate instilled in you through your environment growing up → finding someone who loves you & believing you’ll hurt/corrupt them → going deeper & finding the root of all that shame comes from your own inability to accept who you are 

Was Jason’s situation (?? idk what to call it) known to others outside the band I wonder? Do you think ppl thought everything was ok?

................. :,-)

an excerpt from Metallica: Enter Night by Mick Wall:

“We’d all pick on him,’ tour photographer Ross Halfin later told Joel McIver. ‘We’d all get a cab and make him get a cab on his own. It started off as a joke and then it got really beyond a joke.’ Bobby Schneider agrees: ‘Jason fit [musically] but the razzing of Jason was terrible. They never really gave him a chance.’ He explains, ‘All of us, me included, started really making it hard for Jason. First as a joke but it started to get…they were sort of childish jokes in my mind, you’re just razzing the new guy. But as it started coming from them as well, then a lot of people on the crew…because you know what that’s like. Once it becomes okay to bully somebody then most people unfortunately, the shitty human nature that we have, without really realising it, you jump on.”

hetfield uses the phrasing ‘the you’ in song a lot, & im definitely overthinking this but it’s an interesting conceptualization + fracturing of the self

Can u elaborate on the "ugly implications" of James' waitress fetish?

the whole thing with james calling jason 'my waitress' with heavy sexual implications (along with several gendered slurs) is just ...... okay lets break it down.

first: the concept of the waitress as a woman who is obligated to 'service' him & must be friendly/accommodating no matter how she's treated in kind. deeply uncomfortable implications there

second: the use of both sexualized & gendered language to humiliate & belittle jason (coming from the idea that femininity = weakness/lack of power & men who are associated with femininity deserve to be treated as such) while also making implications about jason's sexuality & place within the band hierarchy (aka: he's james' bitch) so both sexism AND homophobia

plus the fact that this is all public, on stage, right before jason does his solo. so

Yeah, he does come across as "commanding and stern" (mostly in interviews). And also as brooding, emotionally suppressed, hmhm, conservative, and kinda impatient, all of which traits that are associated with "classic", but also distant father figures as well. I'd say at least.

I find it interesting how different he appears on stage (not so much today though). The wide stance, the animalistic hunching, the swear words, the machoism. But that's also stuff people associate with, well, "daddies". To me, it's all weirdly fitting.

Just some thoughts.

yep, it does all fit imo ! it's all different elements of the father figure — wrt to his stage behavior (at the risk of sounding freudian) there's a certain sexual element to fatherhood that i think was definitely in play there; the [virile] commanding/guiding presence

ACCENT DISCOURSE UGHH!!!! if british accent was his intro to english, that would make a lot of sense (not only geographically and culturally but also phonetically) bc he talks like no other ESL person i’ve ever heard and the people i know all learned standard american accented english. Like he just is so heavy on his o and a vowels. I guess it’s a natural carry over from Danish too bc to my ears, they put the stress on those vowels a lot which is where that distinctive language sound comes from. You hear Danish and KNOW it’s Danish lol

i know he learned british english in school pretty much as a fact, since that's how my father learned it (and cuz it just makes sense, its europe)

but also: yeah, the vowel sets used in english & danish are not the same, so when he switches it's more of a conscious effort. the wide "a" sound is very american (as is just .. the wider mouth position in general). he definitely goes the extra mile with the plosives as well, cuz danish tends to soften them, especially the hard "r" (NOT a natural sound in scandinavian languages); californian accents are rhotic (which, fun fact, likely is due to the migration of southern farmers into california during the dust bowl), so it's definitely being reinforced.

what makes danish distinctive is stød, which is the guttural, base-of-the-throat sound ! it's laryngeal; aka they're essentially speaking from the back of the throat – which you can hear that lars does, though to an increasingly lesser extent as time passes

okokokok just for the sake of the discussion bc your jason post got me thinking: at what point, if ever, do you think he got comfortable with them as a group?

interesting question ! i'd say jason got comfortable with them ... mmh, probably around the end of the justice tour (the first three years were the worst, allegedly) but. that's not necessarily because they accepted him, that's just when he seems to settle into the place they allow him. it's not resignation, per se, but he definitely compartmentalized like. a lot