Songfacts Behind the History and Meaning of the Metallica Song “Enter Sandman”

With fast playing and booming rhythms, the group has also become one of the genre’s best-selling by any metric. Metallica is also often listed as one of the “big four” of thrash metal groups, along with Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer.

One of the band’s most famous songs is “Enter Sandman,” the 1991 track and lead single from the group’s self-titled album from that same year.

The History and Meaning

The music for the song was written by Metallica guitar player Kirk Hammett, along with Hetfield and Ulrich. The subject matter for the tune was composed by Hetfield, who sings with a rugged growl about a child trying to fall asleep and the nightmares that ensue.

The single hit No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991 and it later earned platinum certification in the U.S. It also helped the band’s self-titled LP sell more than 30 million copies. Today, “Enter Sandman” is featured on all of the group’s live records and DVDs released post-1991.

According to the band, “Enter Sandman” was the first track that Metallica wrote for its 1991 self-titled LP. The song was written in Ulrich’s Berkeley, California home. It began with a guitar riff that Hammett wrote, which he said was inspired by Soundgarden’s 1989 LP, Louder Than Love.

The original riff was just two bars, said Ulrich on the Classic Albums: Metallica—Metallica DVD. But he encouraged Hammett to play the first bar three times in a row and end with the second bar played fourth. With the instrumental part of the song done, Hetfield took his time writing the lyrics. According to the band, it was one of the last on Metallica to have lyrics.

Furthermore, the original lyrics Hetfield wrote are not the lyrics that appear on the track today. Originally, feeling that the song sounded too commercial, Hetfield attempted to write about a “perfect” family being destroyed by a “huge horrible secret.” The song included a reference to “crib death,” or the sudden death of an infant in their crib.

But Ulrich thought the lyrics originally written by the band’s frontman weren’t on point. So he and producer Bob Rock told Hetfield that he could write better lyrics. He did just that, trying to hone in on a better story for the song that was, according to Ulrich, the “foundation, the guide to the whole record,” even before the final lyrics were landed on.

Taking Shape

The band recorded an instrumental demo on August 13, 1990. Later, Metallica was tracked in Los Angeles between October 6, 1990, and June 16, 1991.

Hetfield initially described “Enter Sandman” as having a “wall of guitars,” which included three rhythm tracks of the same riff performed by him. Said recording engineer Randy Staub, there were some 50 drum takes recorded because Ulrich recorded each second of the song separately and not all at once. Takes were edited together.

The song, which incorporated more bass than the band had previously worked with on past recordings, took 10 days to mix. It was that fundamental to the album.

Today, while the song is considered more simple than previous tracks from Metallica, like on their acclaimed speedy LP, …And Justice for All, Ulrich described the song as a “one-riff song.”

The Guitar Solo

The band Heart helped to inspire one of the final licks of the song’s guitar solo, played by Hammett. The Heart song “Magic Man” was something of a guiding light for the shredder.

Spoken Word

Fans of the song are very familiar with the part on the track in which Hetfield is teaching a child of the spoken word bedtime prayer, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.”

After the “lesson,” Hetfield sings in his signature growl, “Hush little baby don’t say a word, and never mind that noise you heard. It’s just the beasts under your bed, in your closet, in your head!”

This section goes, formally:

Now, I lay me down to sleep (now, I lay me down to sleep)

Pray the Lord my soul to keep (pray the Lord my soul to keep)

If I die before I wake (if I die before I wake)

Pray the Lord my soul to take (pray the Lord my soul to take)

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word

And never mind that noise you heard

It’s just the beast under your bed

In your closet, in your head

Exit light

Enter night

Grain of sand

Exit light

Enter night

Take my hand

We’re off to never-never land (yeah)

The Music Video

“Enter Sandman” marked the second music video from the album Metallica. Recorded on July 30, 1991, two weeks before the album was released, the video combines images of a child dealing with nightmares with those of an old man and the band playing the track.

In the video, the child dreams he is drowning, falling from a building, being covered in snakes, being chased by a truck, and falling from a mountain. It’s dark—but, hey, that’s Metallica. And during the part of the song when the child is saying the bedtime prayer, he is being watched by none other than the Sandman.

The video won Best Hard Rock Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.

The Song in Use

Over the years, since “Enter Sandman” is so popular, it’s shown up in myriad arenas.

It was used by NASA mission control to wake up space shuttle astronauts aboard STS-123. And in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, the song was played for prisoners for extended periods of time by American interrogators.

“It all seems so bizarre and so strange that Metallica’s music, which generally sort of facilitates bringing people together, is used in these bizarre circumstances. It’s certainly not something that we in any way advocate or condone,” said Ulrich on The Rachel Maddow Show,

Also, famed baseball player Mariano Rivera, who was the closer for the New York Yankees pitching staff, would come out to the mound in the 9th inning to “Enter Sandman.”

Weird Al Yankovic used the song for his tune “Polka Your Eyes Out.” And the song was also used by UFC fighter Brock Lesnar as his entrance song for five of his MMA fights.

Final Thoughts

The song is a heart-pounding classic and will forever be one. Watch out—it may just appear in your next nightmare.

#Songfacts

Written by band members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett, “Enter Sandman” is about nightmares and things that go “bump” in the night. It has by far the most radio play of all of Metallica’s songs.

James Hetfield’s original lyric was about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Crib Death), when a baby dies inexplicably in its crib. The line, “Off to never never land” was, “Disrupt the perfect family,” and the “sandman” kills the baby.

Pretty gruesome stuff, so their producer Bob Rock convinced him to change it to make it more accessible and meaningful. The band had a policy of not commenting on each other’s individual contributions, but Rock was an outsider and felt free to speak up. To his surprise, Hetfield took it well and altered the lyric accordingly.

Speaking with Uncut in 2007, Hetfield said: “I wanted more of the mental thing where this kid gets manipulated by what adults say. And you know when you wake up with that s–t in your eye? That’s supposedly been put in there by the sandman to make you dream. So the guy in the song tells this little kid that and he kinda freaks. He can’t sleep after that and it works the opposite way. Instead of a soothing thing, the table’s turned.”

The line in the chorus, “Take my hand, we’re off to Never Never Land” is a reference to the children’s story Peter Pan, as Peter lives in the magical world of Neverland. In this song, the Sandman lives in Never Never Land, and it is a much less pleasant place.

“Enter Sandman” is the first track and lead single from Metallica’s self-titled album, which is known as The Black Album. Their fifth album, it’s a metal landmark and far and away their most popular, selling a stunning 16 million copies in America and many more worldwide. Led Zeppelin and AC/DC had huge sellers in the ‘70s and '80s, but in the hard rock milieu, the The Black Album is by far the biggest seller released after 1990.

In December 2009, Nielsen SoundScan announced that it had surpassed Shania Twain’s Come On Over (from 1997) to become the best-selling album since they began tracking sales for Billboard on March 1, 1991.

Pat Boone recorded a hilariously upbeat version of this for his In a Metal Mood album. He sang lyrics like “Dreams of war, dreams of fire” and “Exit lights” in an almost laughing manner. The music was jazzy and Vegas-esque, and the opening guitar riff was noticeably shorter.

At 3:26 into the song, there is a rendition of an ancient children’s prayer performed by James Hetfield and Metallica producer Bob Rock:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord, my soul to keep

If I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

There have been many more cynical renditions of this prayer which have the child pleading with God to take their life. When Pat Boone covered the song, he said the second part as “Guard me, angels, through the night, wake me in God’s holy light,” another traditional children’s bedtime prayer.

The song marked a shift from Metallica away from the more complex tracks with multiple time signatures that were in play on their previous album, …And Justice For All. In an effort to build “shorter, to-the-point” songs, they used just two riffs on the track and based the rest of the song off those. The result was a straightforward hard rock song that helped seal the coffin on hair metal.

This is often played at baseball games when an intimidating relief pitcher comes in to finish off the game for the home team. The implication is that the pitcher is about to secure the victory and put the other team to bed. One example is Mariano Rivera, the closer for the New York Yankees. Members of The Yankees scoreboard operations staff chose the song, as Rivera didn’t care or listen to the music played when he entered the game. A few years later, a reporter told Rivera about the song, and he approved, liking the idea of giving opposing hitters nightmares.

The Sandman, a wrestler in ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) used this song as his entrance music. The fans would sing the chorus during his entrance. In an effort to save money on royalties, ECW had Motorhead cover the song very close to the original. This version was replaced on home video releases.

After the US invaded Iraq in 2003, this was one of the songs they played over and over is sessions designed to break the will of Saddam Hussein’s supporters. The US military also played children’s songs at these sessions, including selections from Barney the dinosaur.

Guitarist Kirk Hammett told Rolling Stone magazine how he wrote this song’s memorable riff: “Soundgarden had just put out Louder Than Love. I was trying to capture their attitude toward big, heavy riffs. It was two o'clock in the morning. I put it on tape and didn’t think about it. When [drummer] Lars [Ulrich] heard the riff, he said, 'That’s really great. But repeat the first part four times.’ It was that suggestion that made it even more hooky.”

Hammett told Kerrang! September 13, 2008 about this song’s guitar solo: “A lot of people can probably hum this one note perfect, but aside from the fact that it’s an insanely popular song I think the solo is amazing in its own right. It fits in perfectly and adds a different dimension to the music.”

Metallica usually play this as the last song in their encores.

In a 1991 interview with Guitar World, Hammett explained his penchant for the wah-wah pedal: “There’s something about a wah pedal that really gets my gut going! People will probably say, 'He’s just hiding behind the wah.’ But that isn’t the case. It’s just that those frequencies really bring out a lot of aggression in my approach.”

In 2015, the magazine ranked Hammett’s solo on this track at #4 on its list of greatest wah solos of all time.

The video was directed by Wayne Isham, the first of six Metallica music clips he directed. It won Best Hard Rock Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.

Metallica used this on their 1999 live album with the San Francisco Symphony titled S&M. They weren’t originally going to use it because they didn’t think it went well with an orchestra, but then decided to because it was one of their most popular songs.

Weezer covered the song for The Metallica Blacklist, a 2021 tribute collection comprising covers of Black Album tracks by a horde of different artists. The California band’s take stays relatively faithful to Metallica’s original.

Metallica’s then-bassist Jason Newsted isn’t much of a fan of this track. Speaking to Metal Hammer in a 2022 interview, he described it as “kinda corny.”

According to a 2022 study by Wordfinder, this song contains the #1 lyric that Americans mishear. 70% of Americans think James Hetfield sings:

Eggs and light

End all nights

He actually croons:

Exit light

Enter night

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