"Ride the Lightning" is the title track of the 1984album by heavy metal band Metallica. The theme of the song is that of a man who has been sentenced to execution in the electric chair. He opens by acknowledging his guilt ("guilty as 'charged'"), but still questions who made the judge "God to say" that he should die. Later on the man starts to feel the fear while the execution is prepared and asks himself what he is doing in the electric chair. And by the end of the song he just wants to get it over with. And then aparently he awakens from a horrid dream. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the album by Marshmallow Coast, see Ride the Lightning. ... Heavy Metal is a genre of music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1967 and 1974, took blues and rock to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised by the use... Metallica is an American heavy metal band formed in October 1981. ... The first electric chair, which was used to execute William Kemmler in 1890 The electric chair is a device used in 11 states in the United States for execution of criminals convicted of capital crimes. ...
In an interview with Guitar World magazine, James Hetfield has stated that the song is not an indictment of the death penalty, in which he is a believer, but simply an exploration of the concept of being in a terrible situation with no control. Musically, the song's main feature is the extensive overdubbing on much of Kirk Hammett's guitar solo. Guitar World is a musical magazine. ... Hetfield on a live performance James Hetfield is the main songwriter, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and founding member of the band Metallica. ... // Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the governmental use of execution as punishment for a crime often called a capital offense or a capital crime. ... Les Paul, a pioneer of multi-track recording. ... Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962 in El Sobrante, California, USA) is the lead guitarist in heavy metal group Metallica. ... The guitar is often used to provide rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment to a voice or other instrument, or is used as an integral part of an ensemble. ...
Ride The Lightning - the album title song, this song starts out with an awsome bass line that makes me thing of lightning and the drum as thunder, the lyrics are very well done, they are about a man who is on death row and about to be put to the electric chair.
Ride The Lightning is structually a very well-laid out album with 3-4 out of 8 good songs, which is elegantly finished by the immortal instrumental track The Call Of Ktulu, which is a magnificent specimen of Metallica's thoroughness.
Ride The Lightning is a song about what a man thinks and feels while he walks to his death at the electric chair.
Ride the Lightning is also noticeably more serious and focused than Kill 'Em All, although the band would further tighten their sound on the classic Master of Puppets.
Ride the Lightning is the first of the "unofficial trilogy" of Metallicaalbums that show obvious similarities in concept.
For example, "Fight Fire With Fire" is a commentary on nuclear warfare, "Ride the Lightning" is about the electric chair, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is about dying in a war, "Trapped Under Ice" could be seen as referring to either drowning or freezing to death, and "Creeping Death" details the plagues of the Bible.
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