This song is about a self-destructive, drug-addicted star. Metallica had plenty of experience with "battle scars" and "chemical affinity," as did many of the musicians who came into their orbit (they did tour with Guns N' Roses).
The song's main riff here was salvaged from "The New Song," which Metallica debuted live during 2006. Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone. "We were writing and played two different new songs over the course of that summer, and none of them made the record (Death Magnetic). One was called 'New Song 1' – going out on a creative limb, here – and the other was called 'New Song 2.' That's how deep we went."
He added: "There was a couple of pieces in 'New Song 1,' some of the middle bit ended up in 'All Nightmare Long,' and the intro bit ended up in 'The End of the Line.' That's how we work; stuff just gets changed around, moved over and this goes over there and the rest of that gets sacked and that ends up in the intro in song five." [Laughs]
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