Low Man's Lyric

One of the deepest songs Het has ever written. It's a bit long of a description but please give me a chance to explain and I promise, if you love this song as well, you will feel very inspired.

This song is about addiction. Plain and simple. It's a letter being written to a loved one from a moment of clarity or a time when sober, such as being in rehab. If you read EVERYTHING together, not just "my fingers seek my veins", you'll see it. I'll just use "her" for simplicity's sake to refer to the person he cares for since it's Hetfield speaking to this person...

The first verse is stating his intentions. His heart wants sobriety/reality, but his body keeps going back to the drug. He wants another chance with her, wanting to come back to his life/out of the "rain".

Second verse, he "fell"/relapsed because he "gave up" and his chances had been used up/net below has rot away.

Chorus.. He's lost everything so he's "keeping warm with the trash fire" but he still craves/nowhere safe from the "storm" of addiction in his mind. And he can't bear to acknowledge/look at what he's become.

He's literally writing to her (again, most likely from rehab or place of sobriety), coming to terms with what he's done and the path he must take to sobriety, and asking her not to feel pity since he accepts he's made these decisions, but instead asking for forgiveness.

Third... with sobriety, comes a feeling of being extremely "low" and depressed with what you've done, and craving forgiveness from those you've hurt. (And possibly the most important line of the song) "you bring this poor dog in from the rain/and he just wants right back out again"... the endless cycle of addiction, you beg for help, receive it, but just end up relapsing/into addiction, wanting to or involuntarily.

At a time when he lost everything, he would "cry to the alleyway/confess all to the rain" because addiction stripped him of a home and everyone he cared about... no one left to listen, nowhere left to live. And as every addict does, he "lies straight to the mirror" (we lie to ourselves about everything... being in control, still having a life, "going to quit tomorrow"); the one he's "broken to match his face" (hating what he sees when he looks at himself because deep down he knows the truth).

I see many differing opinions of this brilliant song and Metallica songs have always been open to the listener's interpretation. But one thing I've noticed about Hetfield's songs about addiction, many of them are very difficult to pinpoint as being ABOUT addiction until you yourself have fallen into the abyss of addiction. There were a good 5 or 6 songs (Sad But True, House Jack Built, Bleeding Me, Trapped Under Ice, etc) I never had any idea dealt with this until you start coming face to face with everything he's saying. That's the sign of a true artist.. once you live thru it, you feel what he's saying.

Thank you if you've stuck with me to the end here, and I hope this helped bring the feeling and depth of this work of art into your heart and soul. And for those of you that suffer addiction like me, I hope this song brings solace and a tiny bit of serenity into your life as so many of James Hetfield's songs have done for me.