Metallica 'One' | Classic Tracks

Richard Buskin

Metallica touring ...And Justice For All in 1989. From left to right: Jason Newsted, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield.

Photo: Redferns/Ebet Roberts

In January 1988, Metallica regrouped following the release of three increasingly successful studio albums and the death, some 15 months earlier, of bass player Cliff Burton, who had been crushed beneath the band’s tour bus when it crashed in Sweden. Bassist Jason Newsted joined singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich to begin work on ...And Justice For All.

Recorded over the course of four‑and‑a‑half months in LA’s One On One Studios, this would turn out to be the breakthrough project for the Californian thrash-metal virtuosos, reaching number six on the Billboard 200 en route to eventually being certified eight times platinum by the RIAA. In what has since been named one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history by Entertainment Weekly, the musically complex progressive‑metal album lost the ‘Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance’ award to Jethro Tull’s Crest Of A Knave. Despite its popularity, the record also courted controversy among Metallica’s growing legion of fans. Many listeners were critical of what they perceived as the album’s overly dry and clinical sound; one which, for reasons that will be explained a little later, was largely devoid of Newsted’s bass. And for another, a lot of diehard fans weren’t happy that the band joined the commercial mainstream and courted the likes of MTV by shooting their first music video. Said video accompanied ‘One’, the fourth single off the album and Metallica’s first record to crack the Top 40 in the US, climbing to 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. With a running time of just under seven‑and‑a‑half minutes, its lyrics were inspired by Dalton Trumbo’s provocative anti‑war novel Johnny Got His Gun, in which a WWI soldier lies helpless in a hospital bed, trapped inside what’s left of his body having lost his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms and legs in a mortar shell explosion. Despite struggling to get radio airplay, ‘One’ became Metallica’s first hit single, and remains a staple of their live performances.

“That song is more or less the theme of the whole album,” says Flemming Rasmussen, the Danish producer/engineer who produced the group’s two previous long‑players, Ride The Lightning (1984) and Master Of Puppets, at his own Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen before embarking on ...And Justice For All. “At that time they had already acquired the rights to the [1971 Johnny Got His Gun] movie that they used for the video, because they knew ‘One’ was going to be the big thing that all the metalheads would latch onto.”