Metallica: All Nightmare Long Meaning

Song Released: 2008

All Nightmare Long Lyrics

Luck. Runs. Out.
Crawl from the wreckage one more time
Horrific memory twists the mind
Dark, rutted, cold and hard to turn
Path of destruction, feel it burn
Still life
Incarnation
Still life
Infamy

Hallucination
Heresy
Still you run,...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   May 31st 2011 !⃝

   Wow, you are ALL wrong... This song is about a story in the Lovecraft UNIVERSE but it isn't call of cthulhu (and yes that is how it's most commonly spelled but there is no real right way. It's actually about an FB Long story, this story is called "The Hounds of Tindalos", a story about ethereal hounds who move through "Angles" in time and space and hunt humans for something inside them. they cannot be destroyed in any way, and they will hunt you down without mercy. They have been known to destroy entire civilizations to find their target.
   
   I mean even listen to the refrains and stuff, "hunt you down without mercy", "you hide you hide, you will be found", I mean music is about interpretation so it could be about ANYTHING that chases you, zombies, a group of homicidal maniacs, but James said it was inspired by The Hounds of Tindalos by F.B. long. So before you get a "Holier than Thou" attitude because you think you know more, do some deeper research.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jun 11th 2009 !⃝

   this song is about the hounds of tindalos, a book written by the author responsible for creating C'thulu. they hunt you down without mercy. "all nightmare long" refers to how the hounds are able to hunt you even in your dreams.
3. Parichehr

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   Dec 27th 2019 !⃝

   Well, when i read the lyrics to this song, the first picture comes to my mind is:
   
   "that fatal night Metallica's tour bus skidded off the road; Cliff Burton was thrown out of the window and got crushed when the bus landed on him". That accident happened because that bus driver was too tired, drunk or whatever. He said the bus skidded on black ice before going off road. James was furious, he went back walking on the road looking for some black ice he never saw.
   
   So, long story short, I believe this is a response James has written to that bus driver:
   
   the wreckage, horrific memories, dark, cold and hard to turn ... path of destruction
   
   saying that you made the world believing you crashed the bus because you skidded on some black ice, but one day you'll pay the price for this and you'll be punished for that. There is no escape for you.
   Just like in "The Hounds Of Tindalos" there is no escape when those creatures come to get you.
   
4. anonymous

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   Jun 5th 2019 !⃝

   You're luck RUNS Out with a screaming James Hetfield
5. anonymous

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   Nov 30th 2012 !⃝

   This song is actually inspired by the hounds of trinaldo, because no matter how hard you try to hide the hounds will always find and kill you.
6. Metalhead666

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   Jun 1st 2011 !⃝

   As allways i'll be the exception that is ignored, put in the corner, and looked down on like an annoying mouse you can't seem to get rid of!
   
   I believe this song to be about freedom of speech and how the world will never truly appreciate or incorporate it into the govermentary policies.
   
   'The light that is not light' is a strong metaphor for the 'democracy' that doesn't take into account the ENTIRE nations views as a whole.
   
   I don't care if the band says if the song is about something else because to me this is an outcry for help!
7. TwiztidJuggalo95

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   Feb 14th 2011 !⃝

   no, All Nightmare Long is about the apocalypse, note: WRECKAGE, when the End comes, the Four Horsemen as mentioned in the Holy Bible, will come down and hunt us down without mercy.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. anonymous

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   Jan 12th 2011 !⃝

   It's about Lars and his daughters bojina it has teeth

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
9. Sebseb40

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   May 12th 2010 !⃝

   To "masterkin":
   
   1) It's spelled Cthulu
   2) The Cthulu was the monster, not the name of the book.
   3) Ride the Lightning, Fade to Black, and Welcome Home (Sanitarium) are not about the Cthulu.
   
   -Ride the Lightning is about a man who is possessed and commits crimes bad enough to get him the death penalty in the electric chair.
   
   -Fade to Black is about suicide. James Hetfield wrote it when he was depressed because the band's gear was stolen.
   
   -Welcome Home (Sanitarium) is about an insane asylum. Near the end of the song, the man, and his crazy colleagues, escape.
10. Metallicamaniac666

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    Nov 28th 2009 !⃝

    This song ties up The Ktulu saga As with the instrumental The Call of Ktulu and the Thing that should not be and possibly some kind of monster maybe but it's about how these creatures are being hunted down by it and no matter what they do they end up killed like the saying resistance is futile
11. anonymous

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    Jun 9th 2009 !⃝

    Its about Cliff! "Crawl from the wreckage one more time,horrific memory twists the mind". Wreckage: destroyd bus. Horrific memory: They cant forget about how the crawled out of the bus and couldnt find Cliff.
12. masterkin

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    Jun 8th 2009 !⃝

    its about the book chtulu or how ever you spell it.
    p.s. so is ride the lightning,fade to black, the thing that should not be,and welcome home sanitarium

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
13. AFIfanNo1

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    Jun 7th 2009 !⃝

    I personally thought it was about Shadow Over Innsmouth, mainly because of the chorus, "we hunt you down without mercy...", the dude in Shadow was hunted down by cultists to be sacrificed to Cthulhu and Dagon. However now that i look at it, it could be about Call of Cthulhu. "Crawl From the wreckage...", "horrific memory twists the mind", "the light that is not light is here", all of those seem to describe (in that order) the shipwreck, the memory of cthulhu atrophying sanity, and Cthulhu himself, being a creature that is not light or dark, matter or energy and so on. I just dont get "WE hunt you down", if i remember correctly, they were only chased down by cthulhu, maybe its about both, maybe they did it on purpose to confuse us. in Thing that Should Not Be they say "crawling chaos underground, Cult has summoned twisted sound" the twisted sound is obviously cthulhu, but the crawling chaos refers to Nyarlathotep, messenger of the Outer Gods. I think they just got confused there, maybe the same here. i couldnt tell you, but it is freaking awesome to hear decent and somewhat accurate Lovecraft based music. HP may be buried, but this is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die, he shall always live, through the legacy he created, and in the far off dreamland of Kadath, HP lives on...
14. DaMirrorLink

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    Apr 12th 2009 !⃝

    Oddly enough, this is a song about Cthulhu, as stated in Guitar Hero Metallica's Metallifacts, and it is pretty obvious now, it's about a ship that is wrecked and cthulhu or the starspawn caused it, a lone surivovr or a group of survivors being haunted by it and the starspawn either hunting them down in reality or in their dreams

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