The Musician James Hetfield Calls a ‘Master Craftsman at Lyrics’

The James Hetfield influences are plentiful and they don’t all come from metal, with the Metallica frontman recently crediting a legendary gruff-voiced singer-songwriter as “a master craftsman” lyricist during an in-depth discussion about his writing approach on The Metallica Report podcast.

So which musician got the nod of respect from Papa Het? That would be Tom Waits, a 2011 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy winner who largely has enjoyed a cult success through his career.

You can count Hetfield as one of those championing Waits’ work, with the Metallica musician commenting, “As far as Tom Waits just being a master craftsman at lyrics, painting a picture in one sentence, it interests me and it takes work.”

As a lyricist to aspire to, Hetfield reveals though it’s a more natural talent for Waits. “I saw Tom kind of live it,” he explains. “That was his vocabulary as well. He could sit and speak like that. I can’t.”

In a separate interview from 1996 with Guitar World, Hetfield gave one of his first public shout outs of Waits while promoting the Load album. He commented, “I’ve been really focusing on lyricists — as opposed to people who just sit down and crank out some words for a song — who write fucking poems and then put music to them. I wanted to understand other people’s ideas about how to write lyrics. Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads are the coolest, and I dig all the Tom Waits stuff. I’ve even listened to some Leonard Cohen. I mean, I hate the fucking music, but his lyrics are very cool.”

About Tom Waits

Initially inspired by the folk movement of the ’60s, much of Waits’ early works had a more character-driven, descriptive storytelling type of approach. While he never attained much commercial success, he continued to draw critical raves with each record and his lyrical influence has been broad on a variety of musicians that have followed.

Waits’ songs have also been covered by some of the biggest names in music including Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”), Rod Stewart (“Downtown Train”), Ramones (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”), Eagles (“Ol’ ’55”) Hootie and the Blowfish (“I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You”) and Tori Amos (“Time”).

As stated, he’s a multiple Grammy winner most recently winning Best Alternative Album for his 1999 album Mule Variations. Neil Young inducted Waits into the Rock Hall in 2011 and with his wry wit, Waits commented, “They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing!”

How Does James Hetfield Approach Writing?

Within the discussion on The Metallica Report podcast, Hetfield dissects some of his fascination with words and how it translates to his songwriting.

“I see words that are interesting out of curiosity to me and I would say that coming from a graphics background, the way a word looks is almost more important. Like ‘Lux Aeterna,’ how cool is that? There’s an ‘x’ in it and then an ‘AE’ together?! How cool,” he beams.

“Having access to thesauruses and dictionaries and things like that today is so great,” he continues. “Somebody will send me something and I look at a word and I don’t know what that is, but I look it up and, ‘Hey, I got that.’ I will thumb through books just to see cool words, put ’em in a pile and figure out where they belong. It is like building a vehicle … collecting lots of words and they fit together. But what does it really mean? Is it enough for a subject matter?”

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“But then I go see a band like Green Day and they have some simple ‘Know Your Enemy.’ It’s so hooky and great. It sticks, but that’s not really literary geniusness,” he laughs while acknowledging his made up word.

“And there are times I’ll make up a word just to get a point across. To me, putting words into a song is like another instrument. So if ‘and,’ ‘the,’ ‘if,’ if those things get in the way, just get rid of them. You just want the meaty words to get in there and get the point across.”

Check out more of the discussion from The Metallica Report Podcast below.

James Hetfield Discusses Writing and Lyrics on The Metallica Report Podcast