Classical Composer Reacts to To Live Is To Die (Metallica) | The Daily Doug (Episode 281)

Fantastic reaction as a tribute to Cliff Burton. Thanks Doug.

Been listening to Metallica for about 30 years and the middle of this song still gets me every time.

It's nice to know that Mikael Akerfeld from Opeth once played the clean riff from the middle section at a concert and then told the audience: "if it wasn't for that lick, Opeth wouldn't be around".

James and Kirk’s harmonised volume swells were so beautiful that an actual classical composer thought they were strings.

"To Live is to Die" is a masterpiece, and further demonstrates why Metallica is so much more than a simple thrash metal, but really conquered the summa bonum of metal

It's a masterpiece. I heard this at 17. I had just lost my mother and father to tragedy. This was one of the songs that helped me through it.

Everyone talks about the beautiful clean interlude, but no one mentions how powerful/breaking is the harmony before and how it kicks in at 8:34. Those guitars are crying, man.

"They're in E minor" - That's how you know it's Metallica. Loved the reaction to the beginning of the interlude. More than 30 years later, it still gives me goosebumps.

9:35 that isn’t a violin, that is actually an electric guitar using a technique called a volume swell. where you use vibrato to let a note ring out then turn your volume on a bit. it gives that fade in and out feel as if it were a violin.

The thing is, To live is to Die fades out with this really calming acoustic guitar and it makes you feel all is well but then the album goes right into Dyers Eve which scares the hell out of you. Which it should. You have to listen to the two songs back to back on your own time, it’s great.

There is something magical when James rips out a solo

That interlude arpeggio is the most melancholic melody ever. Play this when you feel like shit and it talks to you, shows empathy to your emotions. As the great Jose Feliciano said, “she just listens to me, her music means more to me from any other woman I had known.”

The ending really needs to be heard in the context of the album where Dyer’s Eve just takes over abruptly (and intensely). Yeah you’re right in noticing that.

“Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home”—the final lyric—is Cliff’s epitaph.

I know Orion is the shit and Call of Kutulu is haunting but this has always been my favorite instrumental. I always felt it was working the stages of grief. The intro to me always resembled the moments after the news broke of a tragedy....the processing of info, the calm sorrow....then the anger rises, the feeling of betrayal by life, by love, by stealing of your brother in his prime. Then the middle part hits, the lachrimose, the rending of all happiness as the brain finally comprehends that he is gone, it is not a cruel joke someone played, but a bitter reality that left burning gall in the back of the throat. When a man lies, he murders some part of the world,. These are the pale deaths which men miscall there lives, all this I cannot bear to witness any longer, cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home. R.I.P. Cliff

Metallicas MOST underrated album. I can’t get enough, start to finish.

James Hetfield wrote some of the most beautifully composed music to ever be played.

That song is a masterpiece, and going straight into “Dyers Eve” which is a great album closer!!!

When a song manage to get you emotional without words, it ascends into music Olympus

And Justice for All is the best metal album of all time IMO. There's not a bad song on that album. And To Live is to Die is an absolute musical masterpiece.