When a band member chooses a favorite song, it's inevitable that opinions will emerge, both for and against. This time, drummer Lars Ulrich ventured to claim that "Master Of Puppets" or "One" are the songs that best represent Metallica . So, which side will you be on?
“'Master Of Puppets' is definitely very, very, very close to the best choice because, I think, it fulfills many of the requirements,” Ulrich responds in an interview with Eddie Trunk . “Obviously, it’s a longer song, it’s a kind of journey, and it has the light and the dark, the heavy and the more melodic. So it has so many different moments.”
“Obviously, there are also a lot of incredible lyrics. Those lyrics can be anything you want them to be. And I’ve had conversations with a lot of people about different meanings and everything else, but when [James] Hetfield writes lyrics that can be interpreted in any way the listener wants, that’s when I think they’re at their best,” says the drummer.
Taking the matter further, Lars continues thinking and adding options to his answer, “Another song that fulfills many of these requirements is 'One', but then there are some deeper songs. I think a song like 'Bleeding Me' has many of the requirements fulfilled as well. And some of the things from the last two albums too. For me, it's proof of the strength of these last two albums, Death Magnetic and Hardwired .”
“A lot of the older records, we’d make them, and then we’d sit there six months later or a year later and think, ‘I don’t know about that mix,’ or, ‘I don’t know what we were thinking on that other track,’ or ‘I don’t know what was going on in that guitar part,’ or that crazy drum sequence, or whatever. But both Death Magnetic and Hardwired , for me, the shelf life of both of those records in terms of me sitting there and questioning the decisions that were made, they still come up very, very high on my list of reviews, or whatever you want to call it,” he says.
Regarding the quality of the latest albums, the drummer says, “I think a song like 'Moth Into Flame' or 'Halo on Fire,' and even going back to Death Magnetic … when I was playing down there two or three days ago, I was playing 'Cyanide' on drums, I was playing 'Broken, Beat & Scarred,' I was playing 'All Nightmare Long,' and some of those tracks still sounded fresh and relevant as they did 12 years ago. But if forced [laughs] to make a decision, I think I'd probably say 'Master Of Puppets' or 'One' as the ones that show what we in Metallica are most proud of in terms of what we do,” he concludes.
