At Long Last: The Complete Hetfield-McCartney Songbook

If you're like me, you like the Beatles.

But you also like Metallica.

Trouble is, you can't listen to both at once.

Or... can you?

All Along the Blogtower (scan down to "Fusion or Confusion") gives blog-exposure to the bestest (and weirdest) fusion novelty cover band since Dred Zeppelin, "Beatallica."

I kind of like "Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band." And "Leper Madonna" is good too.

And then there's"Sandman:" A mix between "Taxman" and "Enter Sandman." And "We Can Hit the Lightz." And "For Horsemen"(a mix of "Four Horsemen" and "For No One").

I'm not lying to you-- you really can't hit any button on this page and go badly wrong.

And the thing is-- it really does sound like both the Beatles and Metallica. It's all of the wholesome melodies of Lennon-McCartney but with the growl of James Hetfield's vocals.

Oh Dear... It just gets better and better. Gotta To Get You Trapped Under Ice.

They offer "radio edits" of most of their songs (many of which contain profanity).

Umm, now, I think this is pretty cool ish and everything, but do they really have to worry about radio edits at this point? Seems to be getting a little ahead of things, there.

And, Scrolling Down... Some covers of Archie Comix books that Senator Stevens might want to regulate.

Who the hell ever read Archie, by the way? Archie was one step below Mary Worth and Dondi, for crying out loud. How did this book stay in circulation for 50 odd years?

It's either a mob front or a tax dodge. I simply refuse to believe that anyone ever paid money to see what sort of hijinks ol' Jughead would pull this week.

The guy's big signature personality trait was wearing a stupid frigging paper crown that any retard could pick up with a Burger King kid's meal.

Hey, even I had a better schtick than that in high school.

Ultimate Geek Synthesis Update: It all comes together.

All Along the Blogtower informs me that the lyrics to "The Thing That Should Not Let It Be" are as follows:

When I find myself in times of trouble
Hybrid children come to me Pray for father roaming—roaming free

And in my hour of darkness
It is standing right in front of me
He is the thing that should not let it be
Let it be, let it be
Hybrid children watch the sea
He is the thing that should not let it be

Crawling chaos underground people
Living in the world agree
The wretch is fearless with insanity
And though he has been sleeping
There is still a chance that he will see
That this thing should not let it be

Not dead which eternal lie
With stranger eons death may die
These are words of wisdom—let it be

I wake up to the sound of Metallica
Let the metal come to me
Death to the one that will not let it be.

Let it be, let it be
Hybrid Children watch the sea.

That's right, flapjack. It's a song sung by (or sometimes to) Cthulhu, He Who Lies Dead But Dreaming in the Sunken City of R'yleh.

"Hybrid children" are the Deep Ones, Cthulhu's half-fish half-man progeny (hence calling himself "father"), "watch the sea" just refers to the ocean from which Cthulhu is destined to rise, "the crawling chaos" is a nickname given to another Lovecraft god (Yog-Sothoth?), and this lyric...

Not dead which eternal lie
Stranger aeons death may die
these are words of wisdom
Let it be

is just a garbled version of Lovecraft's oft-uttered

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.

So these guys were sitting around, thinking, "You know, we're a Metallica-Beatles fusion cover band. What can we do to make this any dorkier? Oh, I've got it: we'll write a song about frigging Cthulhu."

Well played, Beatallica. Very well played. You obviously have some... skills.

Corrections: "The Crawling Chaos" is Nylarthoptep (sp?), not Yog-Sothoth, as pointed out by Kerry. Did it ever occur to you guys that I occasionally deliberately blow these super-geek details in order to maintain plausible deniability about my exact level of familiarity with dork culture?

So, Kerry: Now who's the nerd?

Furthermore, Stukow points out that Beatillca didn't write a Cthulhu song; it's actually just based, partly, on a Metallica song called "The Thing That Should Not Be," which is, yes, about Cthulhu. I should have guessed that.

But that does mean that Cthulhu just got 10% less dorkier. No longer do you have to admit you first heard of him when paging through your old copy of Dieties and Demigods. Now you can proudly say, "Oh, Cthulhu? Right, I know all about that. I heard about him in this kick-ass Metallica song. You got a problem with that, pencil-neck?"

posted by Ace at 12:09 AM

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