All Nightmare Long
| "All Nightmare Long" | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Disc 1 cover | ||||||||||||||||
| Single by Metallica | ||||||||||||||||
| from the album Death Magnetic | ||||||||||||||||
| B-side |
"Wherever I May Roam" (Live) "Master of Puppets" (Live) "Blackened" (Live) "Seek & Destroy" (Live) | |||||||||||||||
| Released | December 15, 2008 | |||||||||||||||
| Recorded |
March 12, 2007–May 11, 2008, at Sound City in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, Shangri La Studios in Malibu, California and HQ in San Rafael, California | |||||||||||||||
| Genre | Thrash metal | |||||||||||||||
| Length | 7:58 | |||||||||||||||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo, Lars Ulrich | |||||||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Rick Rubin | |||||||||||||||
| Metallica singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||
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"All Nightmare Long" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, released as their fifth single from their ninth album Death Magnetic. The single was released on December 15, 2008.[1] The song is in Drop D tuning. It was nominated for the Kerrang! Award for Best Single.
Music video
The music video, directed by Roboshobo (Robert Schober),[2] debuted on December 7, 2008, on Metallica's official website and Yahoo! Video.[3][4] The video, which does not feature the band, is an alternate history narrative done in grainy mockumentary style, depicting a sequence of fictional events following the historic 1908 Tunguska event, at which Soviet scientists discover spores of an extraterrestrial organism, a small harmless thing resembling an armored worm.
However, it turns out the incredibly hardy spores are able to reanimate dead tissue, and subjects turn violent sometime after exposure to the spores; a cartoon then shows the USSR adapting them as a bioweapon and scatters them from balloons in a preemptive strike against the U.S., causing a localized zombie apocalypse before intervening militarily to distribute humanitarian aid. At the end of the cartoon, a hybrid U.S.-USSR flag is raised in the now-Soviet-ruled America, and in 1972, a headless corpse is shown breaching containment and escaping from a Soviet biowarfare lab. The video ends with an incident in Arkansas, similar to the start of the video, with various news reporters reporting on chemtrails.
Video origin
Initially, in a video on the website Metclub.com, Kirk Hammett explained the origins of the video. He claimed to have bought the film from a fan for $5 in Russia and soon forgot about it. After digging it up and watching the animated film, he said that he was fascinated by it, researched about its background, and asked a friend's Russian girlfriend to translate parts of it. Following this, Hammett had supposedly been trying to incorporate the film into one of the band's music videos. However, as it was later revealed, Hammett's story was a fake to produce hype about the video: the film was not made in Russia and Hammett did not actually buy it there. Rather, as the video's director Roboshobo stated in an interview, the live action segments (including the ending) were specially shot to look like excerpts of old Russian documentary footage. The video bears similarities to the underground documentary Experiments in the Revival of Organisms, where animal experimentation to produce life extension is depicted. The subtitles and everything else included in the video are part of its concept.[5] The word "Тунгусский" ("Tunguska") appears several times with different typos ("тунгузский", "тунзский", "тчнгзский").
Lyrical meaning
In an interview, James Hetfield commented on the song's lyrical meaning:[6]
| “ | It was an attempt to get back to the H. P. Lovecraft mythos with Thing that Should Not Be, Call of Ktulu.[sic] This was about the Hounds of Tindalos, which was another crazy mindfuck about these wolves that hunt through their nightmares and the only way you can get away from them is stay within angles (120 or less). You can't even escape through sleep. | ” |
Release versions
The single is available in a three disc collectors set.[1] The first disc was released as a digipack to store the remaining two discs with the album version of "All Nightmare Long", along with the songs "Wherever I May Roam" and "Master of Puppets", recorded live in Berlin at the Death Magnetic release bash at the O2 Arena back in September 2008.[1] The second disc also has the studio version of "All Nightmare Long", along with the songs "Blackened" and "Seek & Destroy", also recorded at the Berlin O2 Arena.[1] The third disc is a DVD, which, along with the album version of the song as audio, includes a ten-minute-long mini-documentary about the bands' day in Berlin, along with twenty minutes worth of live tracks from that night's album release party, as well a fifteen-minute-long movie from the tuning room at the Rock im Park.[1]
In pop culture
- The song first appeared as one of the songs off of Death Magnetic that was made available as downloadable content for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. In addition, "All Nightmare Long" can also be imported to several Guitar Hero titles as well as the stand-alone game focused around the band itself, Guitar Hero: Metallica.
- "All Nightmare Long" appeared in the documentary McConkey.
- The song was used as the theme for the WWE's 2008 pay-per view event No Mercy.[7]
Track listing
| International Single Part 1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "All Nightmare Long" | 7:58 |
| 2. | "Wherever I May Roam" (Live) | 6:37 |
| 3. | "Master of Puppets" (Live) | 8:20 |
| International Single Part 2 | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "All Nightmare Long" | 7:58 |
| 2. | "Harvester of sorrow" (Live) | 6:29 |
| 3. | "Seek & Destroy" (Live) | 7:45 |
| International Single Part 3 (DVD) | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "All Nightmare Long" | 7:58 |
| 2. | "Berlin Magnetic" (Documentary) | 31:51 |
| 3. | "Rock Im Park "Containter" Rehearsal" | 14:46 |
| Japanese EP | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "All Nightmare Long" | 7:58 |
| 2. | "Wherever I May Roam" (Live) | 6:37 |
| 3. | "Master of Puppets" (Live) | 8:20 |
| 4. | "Blackened" (Live) | 6:29 |
| 5. | "Seek & Destroy" (Live) | 7:45 |
| Australian single | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "All Nightmare Long" | 7:58 |
| 2. | "Master of Puppets" (Live) | 8:20 |
| 3. | "Blackened" (Live) | 6:29 |
| 4. | "Seek & Destroy" (Live) | 7:45 |
Personnel
Metallica
- James Hetfield – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
- Kirk Hammett – lead guitar, backing vocals
- Robert Trujillo – bass, backing vocals
- Lars Ulrich – drums, percussion
Production
Charts
| Chart [8] | Peak |
|---|---|
| Spain Singles Top 20 | 1 |
| Finland Singles Top 20 | 11 |
| Italy Singles Top 50 | 12 |
| Germany Singles Top 100 | 15 |
| Belgium Singles Top 50 | 27 |
| Dutch Top 40 | 7 |
| Sweden Singles Top 60 | 44 |
| Austria Singles Top 75 | 51 |
| France Singles Top 100 | 55 |
| US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks | 7[9] |
| US Billboard Rock Songs | 28 |
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 "METALLICA: 'All Nightmare Long' Single Details Revealed". Blabbermouth. November 15, 2008.
- ↑ "Metallica video director EXCLUSIVE pic and interview". Metal Hammer.
- ↑ "Metallica 'All Nightmare Long' Video". rockdirt.com. 2008-12-09. Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
- ↑ "Metallica's "All Nightmare Long" Video Premieres". Rolling Stone.
- ↑ Interview with Roboshobo
- ↑ "CANOE - JAM! Music - Artists - Metallica : Interview with James Hetfield". Jam.canoe.ca. 2008-12-08. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
- ↑ "METALLICA's 'All Nightmare Long' is NO MERCY's Theme Song". Blabbermouth. September 12, 2008.
- ↑ "Metallica - All Nightmare Long - Music Charts". Acharts.us. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
- ↑ "Artist Chart History - Metallica (Singles)". Billboard. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
