Mama Said

It sounds like a son who after loses his mother acts like its no big deal, and then later in life he realizes just how important she was to him. He tells the story out of order for dramatic effect so timeline-wise the story really starts with these lines:

‘Rebel, my new last name Wild blood in my veins Apron strings around my neck The mark that still remains’

‘Cutting the apron strings’ is a saying which means going off and being physically and emotionally independent from your mum, so he may have initially perceived her as a limiting force when he says things like ‘apron strings around my neck’. With this verse he communicates his need to rebel at that point in life and to reject domestic life which was the domain of his mother. He has ‘wild blood’ in his veins and he wanted to get out and be independent. When he says ‘the mark that still remains’ it could mean a few things, either that up until this point he always remembered his mother in the negative light of someone he wanted to escape or alternatively it could mean that this negative relationship that he had with mother when she was dying has scarred him for life.

He then goes on to say that he left home young and that might be wrong but he knows that leaving home after she died isn’t the problem here, it was his relationship with her. I think he puts this line in there about leaving home to say that he was always going to leave and go do big things anyway, he’s not just leaving her specifically.

I’ll come to the chorus later, now we go back to the first verse where he is an adult looking back and he viewing his mother more fondly:

‘Mama, she has taught me well Told me when I was young "Son, your life's an open book Don't close it 'fore it's done"

"The brightest flame burns quickest" That's what I heard her say A son's heart sowed to mother But I must find my way’

Here it looks like he’s realized that she was wise in her own way and it’s only as an adult can he understand that wisdom. The ‘brightest flame’ line is interesting because it shows that he sees that she really did understand him and his extreme creation/destruction tendencies. For those who were wondering there is a line in Blade Runner where they say that ‘a star that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast’ so the ‘brightest flame burns quickest’ is a similar concept, ie being spent up by your lifestyle. I’m not surprised to hear James use fire metaphors after his pyrotechnics accident!

Now the next verse:

‘Mama, now I'm coming home I'm not all you wished of me A mother's love for her son Unspoken, help me be

Yeah, I took your love for granted Not a thing you said to me I need your arms to welcome me But a cold stone's all I see’

So now he’s ready to come back to that relationship with his mum after all the growing that he has done away from her. He’s a successful musician and he wants her to be proud but it sounds like he might not think that he was the best person. He wants her to help him and comfort him, he’s ready for that guidance and love again. However, the sorrow at the heart of the song is that she died. He wants her to hold him in her arms but all he has got to embrace is her tombstone.

Personally I see the verses as being there to tell the story and I see the chorus and bridge as direct expressions of this sorrow:

‘Let my heart go Let your son grow Mama, let my heart go Oh, let this heart be still

Let my heart go Mama, let my heart go You never let my heart go So, let this heart be still’

These chorus lines are far more ambiguous than the verses, so they could mean a lot of things. The pain he feels is pretty clear, in light of the story in the verses I think he’s never been able to escape the pain of losing her, he’s never been able to move on from that pain or be free of that pain. His mother’s got his heart, ie he still feels extraordinary love for her and it pains him. So he seems to be asking to be free of that pain or at least to ‘let this heart be still’, which might mean he wants peace from this emotional turmoil. You could interpret it literally that he wanted her to let him go when he was a teenager but it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the emotion. And the bridge part:

‘Never I ask of you But never I gave But you gave me your emptiness I now take to my grave’

‘Emptiness’ is another ambiguous word, he could be saying a lot of things here. I think not having her has left an emptiness in his life, and that can’t be filled.

It’s a pretty revealing song, we never really saw this side of James before Nothing Else Matters so its great that he started to become comfortable in expressing his deeper emotional stuff! Anyway this was my interpretation, it’s alarmingly long but it think the song has got a lot in it!

"Never I ask of you But never I gave But you gave me your emptiness I now take to my grave"

Read that and imagine the mother saying those lines. I think it would fit. The son left his home. After he returns its too late. Shes dead and tooks the emptiness HE gave her in her grave.

i just lost my mother and so this song has a lot of meaning for me.basically it expresses how we all try to get distance from our mothers but its only when they die when we realise how much we they meant to us and how we took their love for granted.its one of those songs that you can only truly understand if you have been through the same experience.its hard for our hearts to let go of the memory and love for our mothers and it will only truly happen when our hearts are still, that is, when we are dead ,but if we dont try and let go of the pain and move on we may as well just die right now(closing an open book before its done)its easy for the pain of losing her to keep us in one place(let your son go/grow).in the end we all wish to do our mothers proud(i'm not all you wished of me)and we wish we could just see her one more time but know we cant(need your arms...cold stone is all i see).no matter what we will always remember what she gave us(apron strings...the mark still remains)and we will forever miss her(gave me your emptiness and i take to my grave)

He wrote this song for his mother, who passed away.

this is a song about james' regrets in never being what he shouldve been and what he shouldve done to be closer and to make his mother proud. she gave him everything she had even that which was bad and he can't except the fact that his mother is gone and he can't make up and appologize for everything him and his mom never had. so he wants peace but has none because of what he never did.

this song is about Hetfield's regret that he did not make the most of the time his mother was around, as shown by the line 'I took your love for granted, All the things you said to me'. I rate this 4th amongst Metallica's ballads behind Nothing Else Matters (3), Sanitarium (2) and Fade to Black (1).

I think it talks about how his mother tried to bring him up as best she could with what she had, she tried to teach him wrong from right but he needs to find his own way and live life his own way, he makes mistakes but doesn't ask for forgivness and when he realises that he took her love for granted thinking it would always be there it was too late because she had passed away. The chorus is about asking his mother to let go and let him live.

damn, i love this song. its simply he ran away from home, n the years passed and when he finally returned 'a cold stones all he sees' its reli depressing but i love it so much

Well, as a mother here is the way I understand it: Left home at an early age Of what I heard was wrong It's his mother who left home, not him... I need your arms to welcome me But a cold stone's all I see He wishes she was still alive... But you gave me your emptiness I now take to my grave emptiness: she is dead and not there anymore and he will be without her until he dies Let my heart go: he wishes he could forgive her and not think of her with so many disturbing feelings such as hate, regrets, guilt, I guess this is a way of him letting her go too. Also, he is not having the kind of life she would have dreamt of for his son and that makes him somehow guilty. I think everybody can understand this song the way they feel. This is the magic of Hetfield's lyrics. Made me realise lots of things.

3084: Maybe you should come back and post when your balls drop, junior.