Today’s video is Metallica’s The Unforgiven. The first one. The good one. Hell, I didn’t even know there was a third Unforgiven until I looked this video up on YouTube for this post.
I was a huge Metallica fan in my teen years but I have to admit that I started losing interest after the Load & Reload albums. I was out of high school by that point and moving on somewhat from my headbanging days but, quite frankly, those albums were also really shit compared to their previous ones. Well, I believe Garage, Inc. came out just after those? I did like that album a lot but that’s because I already loved the songs that were on the original Garage Days Re-Revisited (The Wait & The Small Hours rule). A few of the new covers on Garage, Inc. were okay too but, mostly, it was the older re-released covers that were the best. Man, I remember how excited I was in anticipation of Load & Reload being released, though! What a massive disappointment.
It was the same way with Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I & II. Remember those?! Ugh. Although, more decent singles actually came out of those than Metallica’s Load or Reload… Unbelievable! I far prefer Metallica. I was actually just getting over mono, which I was convinced would be the death of me (mono sucks), when those Guns N’ Roses albums came out & I dragged myself from my death bed to go buy those fuckers. Dammit. Those albums were SO not worth setting back my mono-recovery for a few more days.
But I digress. Massively. Because The Unforgiven is from Metallica’s last truly good (although very mainstream & not my actual favorite) album. Master Of Puppets is probably my favorite album, followed by Ride The Lightning. Sorry… Reminiscing again! I miss old school metal. Ah, but Metallica’s Black Album (or self-titled if you prefer) came along when I was the perfect age for it & it ended up being the one I’ve heard the most by far as my friends & I would drive around constantly listening to it. I remember a friend & I going to a local fair and headbanging to the album being played loudly on one of the rides. The carnies saw us and decided it would be fun to leave us on the ride for f*^king ages while I screamed at them to stop the damn ride because all the headbanging ended up making me sick. Those bastards. Ahh…. The teen years…. *sigh*
Okay – should I actually talk about the video for The Unforgiven? I suppose One is Metallica’s most famous video (I love that too – I’ll post it one of these Fridays) but I became quite obsessed with this one. Why? Because I was an idiot teenager with too much time on my hands & I loved to analyze lyrics & videos and to think I was all deep & shit. I thought The Unforgiven video was all deep & shit too. I could totally relate to my interpretation of this video and I was all “Metallica understand me & my teen angst, man!”. Or something. I dunno but I don’t have time for overanalyzing anything anymore. You lose interest in that in old age (and when you have kids). I’m too tired for that shit now!
But, watching this again now and clearly remembering every single second of it despite not seeing it in decades, I do still think it’s a fantastic video. I always saw it as being about lonliness & desperately trying to reach out & open up to someone but never being able to. How teen angst is that! But according to Wikipedia:
“The song deals with the theme of the struggle of the individual against the efforts of those who would subjugate him.”
Bullshit. I like my interpretation better. Maybe that’s the meaning of the lyrics but not so much the video. There was a longer 11 1/2 minute version of the video but I don’t think the extra bits added to the story (you can watch that HERE if you want). Then of course there was The Unforgiven II from Reload and I appreciate the similar theme to that video (HERE) but it doesn’t make much sense plus I was too old by that point to care to spend time analyzing it. Finally, there’s The Unforgiven III, which I can’t seem to find a video for other than one showing clips of the first two. Does anyone know if one exists?
Well, this was a nice little trip down memory lane but it’s time for me to go take out my dentures & listen to Adele. Ha! Just kidding. Adele sucks. Here’s The Unforgiven video. Finally.
Cinema Parrot Disco 