Loner Metal

I was talking to Chris Eddy about "Loner Metal" the other night. He pointed out that Metallica's 'Escape' was his anthem. Chris is not exactly a misanthrope, actually, one hell of a nice guy, but has an independent, rebellious streak, as do I. Metal fortifies those feelings. It is the ultimate 'fuck you, world' type music. It symbolizes a rejection of shallow material pursuits that society encourages, the endemic conformism, and the insipid crap spewed forth as "culture".

Perhaps it was the music that ruined us. Perhaps. Metallica will explain things.



Feel no pain, but my life ain't easy
I know I'm my best friend
No one cares, but I'm so much stronger
I'll fight until the end
To escape from the true false world
Undamaged destiny
Can't get caught in the endless circle
Ring of stupidity

Out of my own, out to be free
One with my mind, they just can't see
No need to hear things that they say
Life is for my own to live my own way

Rape my mind and destroy my feelings
Don't tell my what to do
I don't care now, 'cause I'm on my side
And I can see through you
Feed my brain with your so called standards
Who says that I ain't right
Break away from your common fashion
See through your blurry sight

Out of my own, out to be free
One with my mind, they just can't see
No need to hear things that they say
Life is for my own to live my own way

See they try to bring the hammer down
No damn chains can hold me to the ground
Life is for my own to live my own way

All metal bands have this type of song in their catalogs. It is nearly a genre requirement. Even more, metal is repleat with stories of loners, misunderstood behemoths. The audience can relate to these tales of oppression and alienation. Take Iron Man by Black Sabbath, for instance:

Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We'll just pass him there
Why should we even care?

He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
Where he traveled time
For the future of mankind

Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
That he will soon unfold

Now the time is here
For iron man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved

Nobody wants him
They just turn their heads
Nobody helps him
Now he has his revenge

Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron man lives again!

The independent streak, the loner aspect, is a thoroughly American value. The British invented metal, and the Scandinavians turned it into high art, but it was in America that metal was given it's values. Only an American band could incorporate something as thoroughly apple pie as the Old West mythos into a metal song, as Anthrax do in 'Lone Justice', drawn directly from pop culture:

There's two kinds, of people in this world
The outlaws, and the lawmen that prevail
The bounty hunter's job is on the wrong side of the law
Intentions, of the truth and nothing more

Burn 'em, clear the streets as he rides into the town,
Cause the nameless one's gonna have some fun
He's gonna bring an outlaw down
Wasted, it's over quick he's nailed 'em three for three
Then with his squint-eyed grin and stubbled chin,
He rides through history

The jury, in his mind the choices weigh
The trials, if you're guilty you're his prey
No judgment otherwise can change the lust
That's in his eyes
The sentence, will be carried out in stride

No name, like a shadow on a moonless night
Real game, he'll be there to uphold
Justice, law and order
And you'll pay, the highest fee

When the gunslinger takes his piece

The money, it's the price you have to pay
When he calls, drop your eyes and look away
The man has taken life to balance scales
Of wrong and right
Existence, each day a moral fight

As metal matured, deeper, more personal explorations of existentialism developed. The entire Slaughter of The Soul album by At The Gates, can be seen as an exploration of existential themes, of a lone man's dent into a very personal hell, eventually into death. The song 'Nausea', explicitly references Sartre, and though not sung(screamed), directly quotes Charles Bukowski in the lyric sheet:

Release me from your world of lies
I cannot bear this pain
Degenerate machinery
The monsters we create

Nausea, oh sweet nausea

Genetic barcode hell
Mental genocide
Repulsive human shells
Choke on the fruits of life

Nausea, oh sweet nausea

Cold stare, starving eyes
Blinded, tired lives
Release me from this pain
Unknown to man

Nausea, oh sweet nausea

Cold stare, starving eyes
Blinded, tired lives
Release me from this pain
Unknown to man

'The family structure,
victory over adversity
through the family.
Mix the god and country
add the ten hour day
and you had what was needed...'
-C. Bukowski, 'Ham On Rye'


Other songs in metal find complete dispair instead of solice in their loneliness and alienation, and seek to escape it, finding a bit of peace in doing so. Crowbar's bruising song 'Still I Reach', is a surprising admission of this vulnerability:

Lie here in a tortured world
So much I see
All the pain of a broken man
Still I believe
The truth never gets away
And so I reach
Want the answer to make it right
And so I seek

Isolated inside these walls
I do my time
Solitude is my enemy
I stay confined
Had to learn how to live again
Now it's complete
Found the answer to make it right
All I need


The music and lyrical nightmares of Cannibal Corpse have no pretense of introversion. They are a catalog of horrors, of mutilations and bodily fears; their perpetrators mostly human monsters, sociopaths, loners by definition, but thoroughly evil. But this type of song is really a descendant of "Iron Man', a revenge fantasy, a more explicit exposition of the wages of alienation:

Bleed for my pain
Revenge on treacherous snakes
They will pay

Slicing the flesh
Sculptured wounds my catharsis
I will stain

Into the heart
Needle injects gasoline
Convulsions

The one that they betrayed
Has made them this way

Plagued by the bastards
I will kill you
Killed by my rage

Scream at my face
The grisly scars went unavenged
Until now

Deep in the hole
You are not gagged and scream aloud
But unheard

Choke on your vomit
You watch your hands cut off
Then your legs

The one that you betrayed
Will kill you this way

Scarred by the bastards
I will kill you
Killed by my rage
I must kill you

Into the throat
The scalpel slices
Warm blood sprays out
The gushing entices

Pull out your heart
And let you watch
Shove in your mouth
Then stab your crotch

I watch your agony

I am released
From years of pain
Your death averted
My becoming insane
You are dead

I have killed you

But not all is despair, angst, and rage in loner metal. Blind Guardian specializes in heroic tales, this one ultimately an exultation of life itself, of gratitude:

I run through the dark fields
of the plains
reach level 99
the pain cuts deep down
through my vain
how will I break the ice
welcome to my reality
dream forever
sunlight instead of neon light
how will it be
welcome to my grave
and feel the dream is over
nothing can stop me
I reach out for the top

Bridge:
Caught in an old cage
the system failed
built up on lies
now I see that I'm alone
in asylum's cage
I'm left alone

Ref.:
I'm alive my friend
I can feel the shadows everywhere
I'm alive
I left the shadows
far behind me
another one is waiting in the dark

They say the system keeps
the last chance to survive
caught in this labyrinth
of walls and lots of lies
then I began to understand
there's more above than ice
to reach the top
I crept deep down
the answers given in the past
a sensless worth
in useless brains
magic runes
without a meaning
besides the dark
there should be nothing left

Bridge

Ref.

(Solo)

Outside they say death is waiting
but it creeps down through the shaft
finds pleasure in our helpless fear
fills empty rooms
with morbid thought
they've locked the door
and hold the key
sitting beside you
when silent screams
changing my mind and dreams
oh, it's never ending

Bridge

Ref.

I'M ALIVE!!!


That's enough for now. I will return to the theme of loner metal from time to time, as the subject is nearly inexhaustible. I hope this wasn't overly pretentious and boring.