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Mystic-State Allusions in Metallica Lyrics
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"Ride the Lightning" Song
by Metallica
Metallica song "Ride the
Lightning"
Metallica: Lose myself in a crowded
room
UltimateMindBlow
wrote:
>As you
said we should think about a/the possible connection between the album title
and artist's name. Now , i can't come up with any...
metallica=metal+psychedelica?
I listed
several album titles and several artist names.
If I said to associate the meaning of the album title with the meaning
of the artist name, I simply meant associate which album title *goes with* each
artist in my lists. Now, it so happens
there is some connection between the title "Ride the Lightning" and
the name "Metallica". Per
Clark Heinrich's book Strange Fruit, Amanita is a high point of concern for the
classic alchemists.
The title
of a book I've seen in more than one bookstore is
De re
Metallica
by
Georgius Agricola
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486600068
I don't
think it's about alchemy. Describes the
thinking of early technologists and shows the development of materials
technology and related engineering knowledge of the late 15th century. Published in 1556 by Georgius Agricola.
Metallica
thanks Rush for help, in the liner notes of Master of Puppets -- on-topic for
this discussion group. Themes of death,
puppets, God.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002H33
Farewell
to Kings - cover shows a king-ego puppet with puppet strings disappearing into
the sky.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000001ESJ
The art of
alchemy is, by that model, a matter of harvesting and drying and ingesting
Amanita, and running it through your system round-trip multiple times (so that
your body turns water into wine). We
can assume that the entheogen that fueled the album Ride the Lightning is LSD,
rather than Amanita, but still this can generally be considered
"alchemy" -- LSD does, after all, take quite a bit of chemistry
skill.
The title
"Ride the Lightning" refers to doing an LSD session -- here, ego
death is allegorized metaphorically as death in an electric chair. Heinrich wrote about Amanita as
lightning-bolt, too.
What is
the connection between the album title "Ride the Lightning" and the
artist's name, "Metallica
Metallica
is a Metal rock group. Their third
album or so, from 1985, is Ride the Lightning.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002H2H
Click
the cover picture to zoom.
Lyrics for
the album (no annotations at the moment, compare my Rush lyrics page and you
can easily figure it out):
http://www.egodeath.com/metallyrics.htm#xtocid229132
Guilty as charged
But damn it, it ain't right
There's someone else controlling me
Death in the air
Strapped in the electric chair
This can't be happening to me
Who made you God to say
"I'll take your life from
you!"
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flames
Wait for the sign
To flick the switch of death
It's the beginning of the end
Sweat, chilling cold
As I watch death unfold
Consciousness my only friend
My fingers grip with fear
What I am doing here?
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flames
Someone help me
Oh please God help me
They are trying to take it all away
I don't want to die
Time moving slowly
The minutes seem like hours
The final curtain call I see
How true is this?
Just get it over with
If this is true, just let it be
Wakened by the horrid scream
Freed from the frightening dream
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flames
http://www.egodeath.com
>the
new Metallica has quite interesting lyrics:
>[..]
>Lose
myself in a crowded room
>You
fool, you fool, it will be here soon
>I seem
to remember there was something about the phrase "disappear into the
crowds" which appeared on a Rush album and some different album. Could you
explain whats up with this phrase?
>The
beast of no-free-will waits just round the corner.
Ozzy
Osbourne: Diary of a Madman: Over the Mountain (Bob Daisley)
http://www.egodeath.com/sablyrics.htm#xtocid229124
Over and
under in between the ups and downs [up to peak, down again; and manic
depression]
My mind's
carpet magic ride goes round and round. [magic ride, common circular motif of
mystic state]
Over the
mountain kissing silver inlaid clouds [clouds = blurry perception,
translucency]
Watching
my body *disappear into the crowd*. [separate self-sense yields to a feeling of
cosmic unity]
Don't need
no astrology it's inside of you and me [inner, not outer, journey]
You don't
need a ticket to ride with me - I'm free.
That last
phrase may be ironic, after "free" is reread as metaphysical freedom
rather than no-cost, given his phrase elsewhere "destiny planned
out".
Rush:
Presto: Hand over Fist:
http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/PRESTOlyrics.htm#hand
I could
*disappear into the crowd*
But not
if I keep my head in the clouds
I could
walk away so proud
It's
easy enough if you don't laugh too loud
It may be
most useful to say "no-free-will/no-separate-self", because the two
are packaged together (despite common wishes to have no-separate-self while
retaining personal freewill power).
Remember, when reading myth-religion-mysticism, what must be your
starting point? Experience, experience,
experience! Start by assuming that you
are now in the midst of the intense mystic altered state, while reading the
poetic lines.
Your
accustomed feelings are suspended, including the feeling of time passage,
body-boundary, self-boundary, and personal control power. From this feeling-sensation-experiential
perspective, "disappear into the crowd" is a report and description
of an experience of no-separate-self, with disappearance of the accustomed
sense of being a bounded self.
http://www.egodeath.com/metallyrics.htm
Metallica:
_Ride the Lightning_:
Fight Fire
with Fire
Ride the
Lightning
For Whom
the Bell Tolls
Fade to
Black
Trapped
under the ice
Escape
Theory of
lyrics:
http://www.egodeath.com/#AlteredStateLyrics
'metallica'
hits at egodeath.com:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Metallica&as_sitesearch=egodeath.com
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