What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Once the world is dead, it’s another ice age. No life, nothing. BLACKENED!
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
With military honors, gave him a soldier’s funeral,
And it was right that he should Sophocles – Antigone (Prologue and Parodos)
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
King Creon allowed Eteoclês to have a proper burial because he fought for Creon’s side in the war.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
A once noble king who has become something of a tyrant.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
In a song ostensibly about their fans, this is a literal chorus describing what Metallica fans do at concerts.
They smash the boundaries, meaning the barriers installed by security.
They act like crazed lunatics, which finds the band members.
And they are the battery… which can not be stopped.
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives Metallica – To Live Is to Die
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Cliff Burton wrote this before his tragic untimely death, but really he was borrowing from a poem by Paul Gerhardt, a German poet/writer from the 17th century(b. 1606 d.1676) and from the 1981 feature film, Excalibur.
The first line, “When a man lies, he murders some part of the world,” is taken from the movie, and the context of the dialogue scene is as follows:
Arthur: Which is the greatest quality of knighthood? Courage? Compassion? Loyalty? Humility? What do you say, Merlin?
Merlin: Hmm? Ah. Ah. Ah, the greatest. Uh, well, they blend, like the metals we mix to make a good sword.
Arthur: No poetry. Just a straight answer. Which is it?
Merlin: All right, then. Truth. That’s it. Yes. It must be truth above all. When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. You should know that.
The line, “These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives” comes from the book Lord Foul’s Bane, Book One of the series “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever” by Stephen R. Donaldson. In the book, the main character decides to write a poem to amuse himself. The full poem is as follows:
These are the pale deaths
which men miscall their lives:
for all the scents of green things growing,
each breath is but an exhalation of the grave.
Bodies jerk like puppet corpses,
and hell walks laughing.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
The fallen city of R'lyeh where Cthulhu has slept for millions of years, a sleep that is like living death.
[T]he nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh […] was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults […] until the end.
—H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
SCARY!!!
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
In HP Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu”, sailors named Briden and Johansen come face to face with the great priest of the old ones, Cthulhu. Being aware of Cthulhu’s presence on this earth is enough to unhinge a man’s sanity.
Briden looks at Cthulhu.
“Briden looked back and went mad, laughing shrilly as he kept on laughing at intervals till death found him one night in the cabin whilst Johansen was wandering deliriously.”
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Metallica was originally an anti-hair metal band, bent on destroying what they perceived as fake L.A. music like Motley Crüe, Ratt, Poison, and that ilk. If you weren’t a devout Metallica disciple, they would label you a non-believer.
And yes, the potency of Metallica is never ending.
This doesn’t explain the third line. Perhaps it works better as an explanation for lines one and two?