Until It Sleeps: Interpreting Metallica’s use of the Paintings of Hieronymus Bosch

Abstract

This article analyses the theological themes and images deployed in Metallica’s 1996 music video for the song Until It Sleeps, which addresses the deeply personal topic of the struggle against an internal foe. This article argues that the conventional assessment of the latter as referring to the cancer that took the lives of the parents of James Hetfield—the frontman and main lyricist of the band—should also be viewed in light of the music video’s use of imagery from the paintings of Renaissance artist Hieronymus Bosch, specifically The Haywain Triptych, Ecce Homo, and The Garden of Earthly Delights. When read in light of the Christian themes inspired by this imagery, the song’s lyrics point instead to an internal struggle against temptation and the evil that inspires it—what in this article I define, in a manner consistent with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ascetical literature—as the “passions.” I argue that this reading of Until It Sleeps is confirmed by the diachronic references to similar themes in song lyrics throughout the band’s forty-four year tenure, as they reflect the upbringing and meaningful personal struggles of Hetfield expressed in artistic form.