Five Heavy Metal Songs That Made Me Realize the Reality of Death.

REPOST: Yeah, I’m one of those long haired Metal-head types that grew up listening to aggressive music, getting into the mosh pit at concerts, stage diving into crowds, and a bit of headbanging at times. One thing that drew me to Heavy Metal was the depth of some of the lyrics in some of the bands I listened to. I contribute music in being one of the main vehicles that made me question the reality of life as well as death. Below is a small list of songs that made me open up to the understanding of the last aspect of life….Death.

METALLICA – Fade to Black
This song is probably the earliest memories of trying to understand death, mainly through the eyes of my own suicide. I went through a part of my youth where I considering killing myself. I went as far as climbing on an overpass and watching the traffic go by under me contemplating on jumping into traffic. One night I even took a whole bunch of pills my mom had in her medicine cabinet.

Anyway, Fade to Black was a very emotional song to me then and even now listening to it and recalling a life so long ago. Every time I hear this song I would play a music video in my head, of various people playing the parts of ‘committing suicide’, the troubles that arise, the uncontrollable feeling of helplessness, then the moment of death, where ‘death greats me warm, now I must say good bye.’

For close to two minutes after those final words are spoken on the song the music continues and the visuals continue in my head. Of the pain and suffering that continued afterward, the hurt of a mother and father losing a child. The pain seen in the eyes of friends and loved ones that just didnt know and trying to come to grips with a loss. This was probably the song that helped me not go through with it since I looked at it through the feelings of others.

LYRICS:
Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this Can t be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now he ‘s gone

No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late
Now, I can’t think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death Greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye

GOREFEST – Reality – When You Die
This song was an interesting one. It tells the story of how you are part of a play and the final chapter is coming to a close. While you come to terms with the mundane existence you had you realize that your life had no meaning and how it quickly passed you by. After the death of you, the actor, the music gets a bit faster and the lyrics go into how everyone is a puppet in life and how people are ‘polluted by the habit of consumption.’ Lyrics below.

LYRICS:
The final chapter’s finished
The curtain is about to fall
Ending mediocre life
Nothing to be proud of at all
Thinking back now
Despising yourself
Feelings oppressed
Always ready to bow
It wasn’t real life
In fact just a play
From which, you the actor
Got fired today

Your final walk down the hallway
No applauding masses in here
Not even dead and already forgotten
Your mind is filling with fear
Never any grip on situations
Your “life” just passed you by
And all the sudden it becomes clear
And insanity takes over now

You’re not going out with a bang
You won’t have “your” day
Your no longer wanted in this dull play
It wasn’t real life
Never came close in a way
Your contract is over
Your finished today

And then you die
Part of a generation
Whose minds are all polluted
By the habit of consumption
No need to get a life
Everything’s been taken care of
Your back bone is attached to strings
In the puppet-play you’re part of

No it wasn’t real life
It never came close in a way
It’s a shame you found out too late
Reality is when you die

DARK ANGEL – Death Is Certain (Life Is Not)
Dark Angel is probably one of the first bands that made me pic up a dictionary and a thesaurus just to understand what I was listening to. In ‘Death is Certain’ the lyrics deal with a man and his terminally ill brother who wishes to die and not be left in a vegetative stage. This was my first understanding of euthanasia, or a mercy killing. It deals with the decisions to end a life and free one from a life of suffering. It also delved in the spiritual aspects of denying that there is a God while there is suffering going on in the world…. “..how can I put my trust in God with innocent people dying?” In the end he pulls the plug and wonders, “..did we just give up on you? I hope you have been saved.”

LYRICS:
Respecting your wishes
My brother, you wish to die
In a bed surrounded by tubes
Immobility’s cast its shadow
In your body numbness reigns
You’ve calculated your demise
Your future racked with pain
I’ll take the life behind your eyes

There was a time when death was distant
And the fire of life burned bright
Now we realize life’s no constant
No will to life, death’s a right
Euthanasia, not murder
Act of mercy to escape
Society’s form of torture
To let you live this way

Death is certain
Life is not
Your mind’s in torment
Waiting to rot
The final curtain
Always draws it close
When death is certain
The end unfolds

From the neck down, you’re senseless
From the neck up, you’re alive
And the politics of humanity
Refuse to let you die
And all the while you plot your death
With me at your side
Your last wish, your brain to rest
Your bondage ropes untied

And the prayer for miracles is through
For there’s no god to care

Do unto others as done to you
Without a doubt he isn’t there
I won’t make a mistake with faith
Christ’s a waste of time
How can I put my trust in god
With innocent people dying?

Paralytic disease infests your brain
Debilitates your mind
A vegetable wasting, decaying
You’re running out of time
All I know is what you said
Before the comas’ grip
Don’t want to live your life brain dead
To death you crave to slip

The needle’s pulled from in your arm
The pulse of life has stopped
Your granted plea, a painless death
To arrive at the end you’d sought
The cryptic statement – bonded truth
Lie peaceful in your grave
Did we just give up on you?
I hope you have been saved…

Death is certain
Life is not
Your mind lies dormant
Proceeding to rot
The final curtain
Has drawn its close
When death is certain
The end unfold

AGALLOCH – …and the Great Cold Death of the Earth
A very poetic song not only in verse but in music. The words speaks of life as a clay urn on the mantle and how ones life is broken scattered on the floor. The lyrics include a Native American proverb which is below in the lyrics

Along with beautiful lyrics the music is melancholic, bleak yet hauntingly beautiful and serine.

LYRICS:
Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am shattered on the floor
Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am scattered on the floor
We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth. . .

SLAYER – Necrophobic
Just how many ways is there to die? “Strangulation, mutilation, cancer of the brain..” is how the song starts off and continues with a varity of ways one’s life can end and the fear one has of dying. Most of the ways Slayer mentions one dying is pretty gruesome and horrid and could make someone phobic over the way ones life may end.

LYRICS:
Strangulation, mutilation, cancer of the brain
Limb dissection, amputation from a mind deranged

DEAD HORSE – Peaceful Death
We’re after the same thing (3X)
We’re after the same…
Peaceful Death!
The chorus was the only part of the lyrics that stuck with me after hearing this song. I remember wondering about how one may die, probably cus of the Slayer song above, and how some people die peacefully in their sleep. Most people would like to die peacefully while most dont even think about it at all.