"All Nightmare Long" is a song by American
heavy metal band
Metallica, released as the second single from their album ''
Death Magnetic
''Death Magnetic'' is the ninth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on September 12, 2008, through Warner Bros. Records. The album was produced by Rick Rubin, marking the band's first album since '' ...And Justice for A ...
''. The single was released on December 15, 2008.
The song is in
drop D tuning
Drop D tuning is an alternative form of guitar tuning in which the lowest (sixth) string is tuned down from the usual E of standard tuning by one whole step to D. So where standard tuning is E2A2D3G3B3E4 (EADGBe), drop D is D2A2D3G3B3E4 (DADGB ...
. It was nominated for the
Kerrang! Award for Best Single.
Music video
The music video, directed by Roboshobo (Robert Schober),
debuted on December 7, 2008, on Metallica's official website and
Yahoo! Video
The company Yahoo! ran several similar video services. Yahoo! Video, a video hosting service, was established in 2006. Later, the ability to upload videos was removed, changing it to a more pure video on demand service; the website became a port ...
. The video, which does not feature the band, is an
alternate history narrative done in grainy
mockumentary
A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary.
These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...
style, depicting a sequence of fictional events following the historic 1908
Tunguska event
The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12- megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 3 ...
, at which Soviet scientists discover spores of an extraterrestrial organism, a small harmless thing resembling an armored worm.
However, it turns out the incredibly hardy spores are able to reanimate dead tissue, and subjects turn violent sometime after exposure to the spores; a cartoon then shows the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
adapting them as a bioweapon and scatters them from balloons in a preemptive strike against the U.S., causing a localized
zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack huma ...
before intervening militarily to distribute humanitarian aid. At the end of the cartoon, a hybrid U.S.–USSR flag is raised in the now-Soviet-ruled America, and in 1972, a headless corpse is shown breaching containment and escaping from a Soviet biowarfare lab. The uncensored version of the music video ends with an incident in Arkansas, similar to the start of the video, with various news reporters reporting on chemtrails.
Video origin
Initially, in a video on the website Metclub.com,
Kirk Hammett
Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962) is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist and a contributing songwriter for heavy metal band Metallica since 1983. Before joining Metallica, he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, ...
explained the origins of the video. He claimed to have bought the film from a fan for $5 in Russia and soon forgot about it. After digging it up and watching the animated film, he said that he was fascinated by it, researched about its background, and asked a friend's Russian girlfriend to translate parts of it. Following this, Hammett had supposedly been trying to incorporate the film into one of the band's music videos. However, as it was later revealed, Hammett's story was a fake to produce hype about the video: the film was not made in Russia and Hammett did not actually buy it there. Rather, as the video's director Roboshobo stated in an interview, the live action segments (including the ending) were specially shot to look like excerpts of old Russian documentary footage. The video bears similarities to the underground documentary ''
Experiments in the Revival of Organisms'', where animal experimentation to produce
life extension is depicted. The subtitles and everything else included in the video are part of its concept. The word "Тунгусский" ("Tunguska") appears several times with different typos ("тунгузский", "тунзский", "тчнгзский").
Lyrical meaning
In an interview,
James Hetfield commented on the song's lyrical meaning:
Release versions
The single is available in a three-disc collectors set.
The first disc was released as a
digipack
Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage.
Jewel case
...
to store the remaining two discs with the album version of "All Nightmare Long", along with the songs "
Wherever I May Roam
"Wherever I May Roam" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released in October 1992 as the fourth single from their eponymous fifth album, ''Metallica''. It reached number 82 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 peaked at number tw ...
" and "
Master of Puppets
''Master of Puppets'' is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on March 3, 1986, by Elektra Records. Recorded in Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios with producer Flemming Rasmussen, it was the band's last albu ...
", recorded live in Berlin at the ''Death Magnetic'' release bash at the
O2 Arena in September 2008.
The second disc also has the studio version of "All Nightmare Long", along with the songs "Blackened" and "
Seek & Destroy", also recorded at the Berlin O
2 Arena.
The third disc is a DVD, which, along with the album version of the song as audio, includes a ten-minute-long mini-documentary about the bands' day in Berlin, along with twenty minutes' worth of live tracks from that night's album release party, as well a fifteen-minute-long movie from the tuning room at the
Rock im Park
The (German for "Rock at the Ring") and ("Rock in the Park") festivals are two simultaneous rock music festivals held annually. While ''Rock am Ring'' takes place at the Nürburgring race track, ''Rock im Park'' takes place at the Zeppelinfeld ...
.
In pop culture
*The song first appeared as one of the songs off of ''Death Magnetic'' that was made available as downloadable content for ''
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock''. In addition, "All Nightmare Long" can also be imported to several ''Guitar Hero'' titles as well as the stand-alone game focused around the band itself, ''
Guitar Hero: Metallica''.
*"All Nightmare Long" appeared in the documentary ''
McConkey.''
*
WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...
used the song as the official theme for the 2008 pay-per-view event
No Mercy,
and in the video package to promote the Winner Takes All match for the WWE and Universal Championship at
Wrestlemania 38
WrestleMania 38 was the 38th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event was held as a two-night eve ...
.
Track listing
Personnel
;Metallica
*
James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar
*
Lars Ulrich – drums
*
Kirk Hammett
Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962) is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist and a contributing songwriter for heavy metal band Metallica since 1983. Before joining Metallica, he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, ...
– lead guitar
*
Robert Trujillo
Roberto Agustín Miguel Santiago Samuel Trujillo Veracruz (; born October 23, 1964) is an American musician, best known as the bassist for heavy metal band Metallica since 2003. He first rose to prominence as the bassist of crossover thrash ban ...
– bass, backing vocals
;Production
*
Rick Rubin
Frederick Jay Rubin (; born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer. He is the co-founder (alongside Russell Simmons) of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records.
Rubin helped popula ...
– producing
*
Ted Jensen
Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''.
Biography
T ...
– mastering
*
Greg Fidelman
Greg Fidelman (born September 4, 1965) is an American record mixer, engineer and record producer. He is a frequent collaborator of producer Rick Rubin, and has worked with many bands in various genres, including Metallica, Slayer, High on Fire, B ...
– mixing
Charts
References
{{authority control
2008 singles
Metallica songs
Song recordings produced by Rick Rubin
Songs written by James Hetfield
Songs written by Kirk Hammett
Songs written by Lars Ulrich
Songs written by Robert Trujillo
Zombies and revenants in popular culture
2008 songs
Warner Records singles
Songs about nightmares