Lars Ulrich Says He Never Wants To Hear This Metallica Song Again

Ralph Arvesen, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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One of the downsides to being a rock star is that there are certain songs you’ve written which you may not like — but which are now part of a ‘legendary’ catalog.

The result is that you now have fans from around the world asking if you’re going to play a song on stage that night which you wish you’d never performed in the first place.

Now, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has revealed that track in his own opinion.

Speaking to Vulture.com, Lars explains that “Eye of the Beholder” off of 1989’s …And Justice for All album is the Metallica track he could do without hearing ever again.

“Wherever I hear that song, it sounds kind of like — I guess we don’t want to be super-disrespectful to it — but it sounds really forced,” explains Ulrich. “It sounds like you put a square peg in a round hole. It sounds like it’s got two different tempos.

There’s kind of a 4/4 feel in the intro and on the verses, and then I think the choruses are more like in a waltz tempo. It literally sounds like two different worlds rubbing up against each other. It sounds very awkward to me. I’m not a huge fan of that song.

“I guess the asterisk is that, to me, we did the best we could each moment,” he continues. “So of course, sometimes you sit down and go ‘Huh?’ or ‘That could have been better’ or ‘That was a little awkward’ or ‘That feels a little silly or easy’ or ‘That feels over-thought-out’ or whatever.

It goes back to that whole thing about the past is the past, and I don’t spend a long time back there. And there’s not really much I can do about it [laughs] and honestly, I don’t listen to them. I don’t listen to a lot of Metallica music. Part of it is because I’m sort of overly analytical [about the details]. It’s basically almost impossible for me to listen to a Metallica song without going, ‘Okay, how are the sonics, how’s the mix, how does the guitar sound?

The vocals are too loud, the bass is too boomy.’ It becomes this exercise in analytics. When you hear your favorite band — like if I listened to Rage Against the Machine or something, I just fucking let myself go. But when Metallica comes on it’s like, ‘Huh?'”