Canadian shredders STRIKER announce they will be joining the Legions of Metal 2024 lineup being hosted in Chicago, IL on May 3rd and 4th. They will be performing alongside Unleash The Archers, WatchTower, Hirax, Mourn The Light, Ice Howl among more to be announced at a later date.
On this day in metal, January 10th, 1989 Metallica release “One”
The song is based on the idea of a soldier losing all of his limbs and jaw and unable to hear, speak, or see, set to a World War I backdrop.
I can’t remember anything Can’t tell if this is true or dream Deep down inside I feel to scream This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me I’m waking up, I cannot see That there’s not much left of me Nothing is real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh, please God, wake me
Partially based on the 1939 Dalton Trumbo novel, Johnny Got His Gun, One had started as a song James Hetfield had dreamt up, based on the notion of “just being a brain and nothing else,” before Cliff Burnstein suggested he read Trumbo’s book. The story of Joe Bonham, a good-looking, all-American boy encouraged to fight in World War I by his patriotic father, Bonham loses his legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose to a German shell. After coming to terms with his gruesome circumstances in hospital while surrounded by frankly horrified doctors and nurses, Bonham uses the only part of his physical being he is still able to control – his head – to tap out a message in Morse code: ‘Please kill me’. “James got a lot of input from that,” said drummer and co-writer Lars Ulrich.
