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Metallica - To Live Is To Die

Metallica - To Live Is To Die Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: ...And Justice For All
Released: 1988

To Live Is To Die Lyrics

To Live Is To Die

This song is a tribute to Metallica's bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a tour bus crash. It is instrumental except the spoken word piece near the end - this was a poem that Cliff wrote before he died (thanks, Toke - Stoke, England)

The line, "These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives" comes from the book Lord Foul's Bane, Book One of the series "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson. In the book, the main character decides to write a poem to amuse himself. The full poem is as follows:
These are the pale deaths
which men miscall their lives:
for all the scents of green things growing,
each breath is but an exhalation of the grave.
Bodies jerk like puppet corpses,
and hell walks laughing.
(thanks, Evan - Columbus, GA)

Metallica singer James Hetfield explained to Mojo magazine December 2008 that this song is an "homage to Cliff without going over the top." He added: "It's about realizing how grateful we were to have that time with him."

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett on the first part of the "To Live Is To Die" solo (Guitar Player, April 1989): "That's a very straight blues box. It was the very last solo I did on the album. It was recorded at 5:00 in the morning, just a few hours before we had to leave for the Monsters Of Rock tour. I just played off the top of my head. On the other solos I carefully figured out the most appropriate scales for the chord changes." (thanks, Olli - Finland)