Heavy metal lyrics are the words used in songs by heavy metal artists. Given that there are many genres of heavy metal, it is difficult to make generalizations about the lyrics and lyrical themes. In 1989, two metal scholars wrote that heavy metal lyrics concentrate "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented" in any form of popular music.Hatch and Millward (1989), p. 167 Jeffrey Arnett states that metal songs are "overwhelmingly dominated" by "ugly and unhappy" themes which express "no hope" for the future.Sylvan, Robin. Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. NYU Press, 2002
Deena Weinstein has proposed one way to analyze metal song themes is loosely grouping them into two categories: the Dionysian theme (a reference to the Roman God of wine), which celebrates "sex, drugs and rock and roll", partying, and enjoyment of life and the Chaotic theme, which involves dark subjects such as Hell, injustice, mayhem, carnage and death.Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Da Capo Press, 2009. p. 35 Not all metal genres fall into Weinstein's two theme model; for example power metal's lyrical themes often focus on fantasy and mythology, camaraderie and hope, personal struggles and emotions, among other themes. Another exception is pop metal bands, which replaced "gloom and doom" themes with "positive, upbeat" songs about romantic love and relationships, part of their goal of appealing more to female listeners.Bennett, Andy. Cultures of Popular Music. McGraw-Hill Education (UK), 2007. p. 41 In metal overall, the small number of metal songs about relationships are typically about unions that have "gone sour" long ago.Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Da Capo Press, 2009. p. 36
The thematic content of heavy metal lyrics has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates a party without limits. The bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic."Pareles, Jon. "Heavy Metal, Weighty Words" The New York Times, 10 July 1988. Retrieved on 14 November 2007. Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs.See, e.g., Ewing and McCann (2006), pp. 104–113 The PMRC used music professor Joe Stuessy to testify against metal. Professor Stuessy alleged that heavy metal songs focus on violence, substance abuse, perversion, S&M, and Satanism. Robert Walser analyzed 88 metal songs' themes to determine if Professor Stuessy's claims were valid. In Walser's analysis, the dominant theme in the metal songs was "longing for intensity"; he found that the negative themes described by Stuessy and the PMRC were uncommon.Walser, Robert. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Wesleyan University Press, 2014. Jeffrey Arnett analysed the lyrics from 115 metal songs: he found that the top three messages were "grim themes" about violence, angst and protest.Sylvan, Robin. Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. NYU Press, 2002. p. 157
Metal artists have had to defend their lyrics in front of the U.S. Senate and in courtrooms. In 1985, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was asked to defend his song "Under the Blade" at a U.S. Senate hearing. In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was sued because of the lyrics of his song "Suicide Solution". In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in a Priest song. While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed. In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values. In countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated.
History There were "heavy"-sounding bands before Black Sabbath, such as Led Zeppelin and Cream. However, the use of "dark and aggressive music" and "offensive lyrics" at the same time was started by Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath 's second album Paranoid (1970) "included songs dealing with personal trauma—'Paranoid' and 'Fairies Wear Boots' (which described the unsavoury side effects of drug-taking)—as well as those confronting wider issues, such as the self-explanatory 'War Pigs' and 'Hand of Doom.'" Black Sabbath's drummer, Bill Ward, states that the band chose its darker lyrical themes because they were "sick and tired of all the [hippie] bullshit- love your brother and flower power forever" and the romantic themes about being "hung up" about a woman that were popular in mainstream music.Bentley, Nick; Johnson, Beth; Zieleniec, Andrzej. Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media: Teenage Dreams. Springer, 31 March 2018. p. 155 Metal lyrics often demonstrate a "bad attitude" and "political incorrectness" and it tends to have "occult and satanic symbolism".
Deriving from the heavy metal genre's roots in blues music, sex is another important topic—a thread running from Led Zeppelin's suggestive lyrics to the more explicit references of glam metal and nu metal bands.Weinstein (1991), p. 36 Some themes are excluded in most heavy metal, such as optimistic, hope-filled songs, songs about romantic love or songs with a 1960s counterculture message of trying to change the world.Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Da Capo Press, 2009. p. 34-35 In general, metal lyrics are not lighthearted and they do typically not make use of satire.Macan, Edward. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Research by Karen Bettez Halnon showed that songs enjoyed by heavy metal fans are seen as an alternative to listening to the "impersonal, conformist, superficial and numbing realities of [the] commercialism" that's present in popular, non-niche music genres.
Themes
Occult
Occult themesCope, Andrew L. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. P. 139 and references to "occult religious practices" are used in metal lyrics. References to Satanism and Gothic horror are present in heavy metal lyrics.Cope, Andrew L. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. p. 139 As an example of references to Satan, the song "Hell Awaits" by Slayer "glorifies Satanic rule".Cope, Andrew L. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. p. 140 The metal band Cradle of Filth writes lyrics which mix "Satanism, occult" and horror movie themes.
Death metal songs involve themes of "horror, gore and environmental and social decay", including descriptions of dismemberment and "botched forensic procedures." James Parker states that while the use of Hell- and underworld-oriented themes in heavy metal can be "dark and disturbing", they are "honest about human nature", and as such, listening to metal lyrics can be beneficial for listeners' mental health (he says metal lyrics can "keep us sane").Parker, James. "How Heavy Metal is Keeping Us Sane: Dark and Disturbing, the Music is Honest About Human Nature". Atlantic. May 2011.
War and violence A key theme in heavy metal lyrics is the "pointless horror and destruction of war". A number of heavy metal songs criticize war, including "War Pigs" (Black Sabbath); "One" (Metallica); "Symphony of Destruction" (Megadeth) and "Now You've Got Something To Die For" (Lamb of God). Heavy metal has a "lyrical fixation with dark themes, including war, destruction, doom and misery." Heavy metal lyrics focus on the "poetics of destruction", such as "death, mutilation and physical violence."Bennett, Andy. Cultures of Popular Music. McGraw-Hill Education (UK), 2007. p. 43 Ronald Pogue states that death metal songs have "violent, aggressive and angry lyrics".Pogue, Ronald. Deleuze's Wake: Tributes and Tributaries. SUNY Press, 2004. Later thrash metal bands' songs "questioned injustices such as warfare".Pillsbury, Glenn. Damage Incorporated: Metallica and the Production of Musical Identity. Routledge, 2013. p. 6
Religion
Even the earliest heavy metal used religion in its lyrical themes, notably Black Sabbath, which usually performed with a crucifix, even though their music had messages about black magic. In the 1980s groups such as Slayer and Venom showed a "fascination with religion", which can be seen in "Slayer's groundbreaking 1986 album "Reign in Blood", which features "Larry Carroll's satanic-themed cover art." Metal bands may have been fascinated with religion to antagonize "conservative Christian groups" that criticized metal. Through the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, anti-Christian messages in metal got more extreme, with Deicide releasing songs such as "Kill the Christian."
Some metal songs criticize religion, such as "Death Church" by Machine Head, which "criticizes the hypocrisy of the Christian church." Metal groups "...seek out every...avenue to assault religion", including "religious hypocrisy", specifically Christianity.Hayes, Craig. "A Very Dirty Lens: How Can We Listen to Offensive Metal". PopMatters. 20 September 2013. Metal songs use themes from the New Testament Book of Revelation which focus on apocalypse (e.g., Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast"). The metal subgenre with the most emphasis on apocalyptic themes is thrash metal.Lunskow, George N. Religious Innovation in a Global Age: Essays on the Construction of Spirituality. McFarland, 2004. Black metal song lyrics usually " attack Christianity" using "...apocalyptic language" and "Satanic" elements. Bands with explicitly Christian lyrics make up a distinct subculture in the heavy metal community, sometimes called white metal in contrast to black metal.
Women Heavy metal lyrics have been called "...callous toward women"Media Entertainment: The Psychology of its Appeal. Eds. Dolf Zillmann and Peter Vorderer. Routledge, 2000. p. 188 and the PMRC claimed in the 1980s that metal songs are misogynistic and that they promote rape and other violence towards women. Andrew Cope states that claims that heavy metal lyrics are misogynistic are "clearly misguided" as these critics have "overlooked the overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise."Cope, Andrew L. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. p. 141 Craig Hayes states that metal "clearly empowers women".
Cope states that there are styles of rock music that contain misogynistic lyrics, but he says this is mostly "blues-based rock music" and "cock rock". Contrary to the claims of anti-metal critics, Cope states that "metal has opened up a space for women", and there has been significant growth" in the number of female metal performers since the mid-1990s.Cope, Andrew L. "Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music". Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. p. 141 Some metal bands even have male/female co-lead vocalists (e.g., Nightwish and Lacuna Coil) and in the 2000s, mainstream metal magazines such as Terrorizer have had a number of articles and cover stories about female metal artists.Cope, Andrew L. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. p. 142 and 144
Drugs and alcohol