Metallica share powerful lyrics for new single Screaming Suicide: "The intention is to communicate about the darkness we feel inside... You are not alone"

Metallica in 2022
(Image credit: Tim Saccenti)

Metallica have shared the lyrics for their hard-hitting new single, Screaming Suicide.

Written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo, the second single lifted from the band's forthcoming 72 Seasons album aims to address what Hetfield says is, "the taboo word of suicide."

"The intention is to communicate about the darkness we feel inside," he says. "It's ridiculous to think we should deny that we have these thoughts. At one point or another, I believe most people have thought about it. To face it is to speak the unspoken. If it's a human experience, we should be able to talk about it. You are not alone."

Read the lyrics below:

"Welcome to this life
Born into the fight
Here to claim your dream
Look you in the eye
Patch the broken sky
Craving dopamine
Then my voice appears
Teaching you of fears
Are you good enough?
You don’t recognize
Head is full of lies
You should just give up  

Listen well, better listen well
Listen well, better listen well  

Don’t ever speak my name
Remember you’re to blame
Keep me inside
Keep me inside
My name is suicide  

Curse another day
Spirit locked away
Punish and deprive
Hate to be awake
Living a mistake
More dead than alive
Then a voice appears
Whisper in your ears

“You are good enough”
Throwing down a rope
A lifeline of hope
Never give you up  

Listen well, better listen well
Listen well, better listen well  

Don’t ever speak my name
Remember you’re to blame
Keep me inside
Keep me inside
My name is suicide

Terrified in sleepless nights
Caught in spotlight dead to rights
Isolate and fight your mind
Telling you you’re left behind

My lying voice inside
Keeps drinking cyanide
And no more can you run
Into the sun

Terrified, sleepless nights
Caught in spotlight dead to rights
Isolate and fight your mind
Telling you you’re left behind

And now you speak my name
You’ve given back the blame
Keep me deep inside
Don’t you keep me inside
Screaming suicide

Now that I’m exposed inside
Shined a light on cyanide
I’m no longer needed here
Now you've faced your biggest fear"

"If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide," the band add on YouTube, alongside contact details for crisis specialists, "please reach out for help."

Watch the video below:

Metallica’s new album, 72 Seasons, will be released on April 14, 2023 on the band's own Blackened Recordings label. The album's first single, Lux Æterna, was released in November.  

Produced by Greg Fidelman with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, 72 Seasons is Metallica’s follow-up to 2016’s Hardwired... To Self Destruct.

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.