Ronnie

The story behind "Ronnie" has taken on a mythical status disproportionate to the popularity of the song itself. For years a story has floated around that it was based on an actual event, a 1995 school shooting in Washington State carried out by a fellow named Ronnie Brown. It's a fascinating bit of trivia, the only problem is, the shooting never actually happened. At least, not as far as Songfacts can tell, and we've invested quite a few hours digging into it. Going by the lyrics alone, the song is about a young outcast named Ronnie Long. I always said, something wrong With little strange Ronnie Long Ronnie, nicknamed Ronnie "Frown," goes on some kind of shooting rampage. Now we all know why Children called him Ronnie Frown When he pulled that gun from his pocket And they'd all fall down, down, down The natural assumption is that it's a school shooting, but that's not specified. All we really know for sure is that Ronnie leaves a lot of blood behind. He screamed, lost my way This bloody day Lost my way All things wash away But blood stained the sun red today In an issue of Musician published in August 1996, three months after the release of the Load album, journalist Mac Randall questioned if the song was about Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's an interesting idea, as Van Zant did come from a small town, had a violent temper, and did leave his mark on history, but the song's lyrics clearly point elsewhere. Only in the most abstract sense can this really be about Skynyrd's former frontman, and the song just doesn't seem to have that kind of subtlety. The story told in "Ronnie" is obviously about a violent shooting. What's less obvious is whether or not the story is based on event. As with most urban legends, no one is sure where the '95 school shooting myth started. At this point, though, with so many newspapers accessible online to verify or disprove such a claim, it's pretty safe to assume that the school shooting story was an urban legend.

Written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich.

The setting in Washington State points to a possible intersection with "Jeremy," which Pearl Jam released in 1991 on their debut album, Ten. That song was based on two real school shootings, one from Texas and one from California, but Pearl Jam were synonymous with Seattle and Washington State, so there might have been some kind of convoluted connection in the zeitgeist that led to the legend of "Ronnie" being based on a Washington school shooting. Regardless, a shooting that happened in 1995 would almost certainly be chronicled somewhere on the internet today, but we haven't been able to dig anything up. No one named Ronnie Brown has shot up any schools anywhere in America. Like the mythical story of the Miami suicide behind "Heartbreak Hotel," this one probably didn't happen.