The Day That Never Comes

"The Day That Never Comes"
Song

"The Day That Never Comes" is the fortieth single by American heavy metal band Metallica, and the first from the band's upcoming studio album, Death Magnetic. Metallica.com has confirmed "The Day That Never Comes" will be relesed to the airways on Thursday August 21st, 2008 at 11am PST.

In an interview with the creators of the music video game Rock Band in October 2007, it was stated that Metallica had given the rights to MTV Games, the game's publisher, to have the first single off Death Magnetic available for playability on the game before the album's release. On August 1, 2008, that first single was ultimately revealed to be "The Day That Never Comes."

Tracklisting

1. "The Day That Never Comes"

Style

"The Day That Never Comes" is described as the most downbeat track on Death Magnetic, and is said to be reminiscent of Metallica's epic breakthrough single "One," which won a Grammy Award in 1990. Like previous ballads by Metallica, including "One", "Fade to Black", "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", "The Unforgiven", "Until It Sleeps" and "The Unforgiven II", it is the fourth track of the album. Rock Sound has also compared the song to the likes of Thin Lizzy.

Music video

A music video for the song was filmed in the desert outside Los Angeles, California on July 31, 2008, directed by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg.

On August 4, 2008 (2008-08-04), In an MTV interview, the song lyrics were said to have been made to tackle the subject of forgiveness and resentment. The band's drummer Lars Ulrich claimed that the lyrics were inspired by a father-son relationship. As is fairly common for music videos, the content of the video itself is of a different theme or setting that what the lyrics themselves were written about, a second interpretation. The video is said to be in a war background in comparision to the "One" video, but will not make any modern day references as in the war in Iraq and the Middle East. Frontman James Hetfield spoke on the lyrics of the song and also the radical difference of the song lyrics and vision intended to the music video.

"That's the beauty, I think, of writing vague but powerful lyrics — that someone like a movie director can interpret it in his own way and obviously, someone creative is able to take the metaphors and apply them to whatever he needs in his own life," the frontman explained. "The main [theme of the video] is the human element of forgiveness and someone doing you wrong, you feeling resentment and you being able to see through that in the next situation that might be similar and not take your rage or resentment out on the next person and basically keep spreading the disease of that through life...The one thing that I wasn't keen on here was Metallica plugging into a modern war or a current event [that] might be construed as some sort of political statement on our part... There are so many celebrities that soapbox their opinions, and people believe it's more valid because they're popular. For us, people are people — you should all have your own opinion. We are hopefully putting the human element in what is an unfortunate part of life. There are people over there dealing with situations like this, and we're showing the human part of being there. "

Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and Ulrich also commented by stating ultimately, the concept of the video deals with humanity and the relationships between human beings and how your basic sense of humanity can override any sort of politicized situation.

Personnel

• James Hetfield – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Kirk Hammett – lead guitar, backing vocals
• Robert Trujillo – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Lars Ulrich – drums, percussion
• Rick Rubin – producer
• Ted Jensen – mastering
• Greg Fidelman – mixing
• Thomas Vinterberg – music video director