Bleeding Me

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the treeI planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.” ~Lord Byron~

Another example of an intelligent and learned man takin a piece of profound classical literature and using it as a jumpin off point to convey thoughts or feelings from within himself. Ggreat tune,great band,outstanding album...

To me, this song has always been about him realizing that his life has fallen into a dark place, and he wants to climb out, but to do that, he needs to exorcise his demons, but he's finding a lot of darkness he didn't know that was there. Hence "Bleeding Me". Bleeding himself of all the bad and dark.

fuck this songs awesome,love it.bleeding me can be interpreted many ways judging by the comments.i've been listining to it shitloads lately and relating it to my drug problem and how i need to get better,still haven't managed to take that leash thats leading me yet,i think in the first verse when james says he's diggin his way to something better,he's talking bout how he's making things hard 4 his self but he knows eventually it'll get better.sewing the seeds he takes for granted could be trying to build on relationships with friends,maybe what family he has left yet,maybe he wishes he spent more time with cliff,R.I.P brother,the thorn in his side from the tree he planted is obviously whatevers hurting him at the moment is from something he's caused,eg all the shit im goin through now is cause i let myself get addicted to drugs, Caught under wheels roll,James is in a rut and the worlds not gonna stop 4 him.I take the leech im bleeding me,he's gonna take control and get whatever impurities he has out of his system,i need to this 2 bad theres a waiting list to go rehab maybe i wouldnt be goin to court tomoro if i was already there.Cant stop to save my soul,james is finding it hard to quit drinking/drugs.I take the leash thats leading me,he's gonna take control.I just wanna ad i love the s&m version of this,especially when james plays the first riff and the string section plays like 3 notes but its so moving,listened to it last nite and felt so sad but happy that theres such beauty in the world and im missing out on it.

this song makes me think about a personal change, a huge change in ourselves that hurts us really bad..thats just my opinion!

I don't really think (as everybody does) that it's about mental torture litteraly understood. I think it's about life, the way James is living. He's doing his best, his way (with all the problems thats make) to find the answer, the meaning. "Bleeding me" means for me that's his way is fight, and sometims hurts, necessary to arrrive to holyness. He's lost and try to find peace.

Metallica frontman James Hetfield explained what the song is about in a 2001 interview with Playboy:

"Around the time of Load, I felt I wanted to stop drinking. "Maybe I'm missing out on something. Everyone else seems so happy all the time. I want to get happy." I'd plan my life around a hangover: "The Misfits are playing in town Friday night, so Saturday is hangover day." I lost a lot of days in my life. Going to therapy for a year, I learned a lot about myself. There's a lot of things that scar you when you're growing up, you don't know why. The song Bleeding Me is about that: I was trying to bleed out all bad, get the evil out. While I was going through therapy, I discovered some ugly stuff in there. A dark spot."

no leaf clover's got the idea. Best song on ther cd along with Outlaw Torn they just sound amazing

One of 'Tallicas best! This is like the first song I learned on my guitar, and i love that opening riff. Jaymz just keeps amazing me with his lyrics, especailly on Load and ReLoad. I don't think those are their best albums, but they are the 'Tallica Boys deepest.

Really nice song, wish the guys would go back to that old sound. But Metallca is Metallica.

out-motherf**king-standing song. one of the most powerful pieces of music i have ever heard in my life. i am a true metallica fan in the sense that i loved them even after their transition. nobody writes lyrics like james hetfield and in this one you can hear his pain come through his vocals. it's a song about mental anguish. about beating yourself down, taking the leech thats bleeding you and the leash that's leading you. it's about trying to fight your inner demons and how tough a struggle that is for some of us. i know exactly how james feels, my inner demons get the best of me at times and i can't stop to save my soul. even in the past few days i have had my world virtually fall apart and i have listened to this song over and over again to reassure myself that i'm not alone. that somebody else feels the pain that i do, the self hatred. i'm caught, i'm caught, i'm caught under.....