Frantic

The band wrote this about mistakes they have made and all the time they wasted on stuff like drugs and alcohol. More specifically, it's about Metallica frontman James Hetfield's troubles with alcohol, a problem he'd dealt with most of his adult life, but that peaked during the making of the St. Anger. It was bad enough that Hetfield went into seven months of rehab while the album was still being recorded. He got clean and has remained so ever since.

In "Frantic," Hetfield is thinking back on all the time he wasted getting drunk. If I could have my wasted days back Would I use them to get back on track? Stop to warm at karma's burning Or look ahead but keep on turning Alcohol is a symptom of his problem, not the root. The anxiety that drove him into frantic activity and frantic drinking is the true problem. He's asking whether or not he would have addressed the real core issue even if he'd been sober, or if he would have simply found some other way to avoid the hard reality he used alcohol to hide from.

Much of the song is Hetfield examining the things that compelled him to drink in the first place. Here the exact meaning is a little vague, but he seems to be saying that it was fear of death that drove him frantically forward through life. I've worn out always being afraid An endless stream of fear that I've made Treading water full of worry This frantic tick tick talk of hurry He wants to accept the inevitability of his death and get rid of the compulsive activity that his fear drives him to. Do I have the strength To know how I'll go? Can I find it inside To deal with what I shouldn't know? He asks these questions while acknowledging that continuing to drink is probably going to kill him. My lifestyle determines my death style It was probably these realizations that drove him into rehab. Death is inevitable, but we have some degree of a choice in how it comes to us. There are better ways to go than from alcoholism.