The Frayed Ends of Sanity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Frayed Ends of Sanity"

Cover of ...And Justice for All
Song by Metallica
from the album ..And Justice for All
Released	September 6, 1988
Recorded	January-May, 1988
Genre	Thrash metal
Length	7:43
Label	Elektra Records
Producer(s)	Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
..And Justice for All track listing
"Blackened" "...And Justice for All" "Eye of the Beholder" "One" "The Shortest Straw" "Harvester of Sorrow" "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" "To Live is to Die" "Dyers Eve"

"The Frayed Ends of Sanity" is the seventh track on Metallica's 1988 album ...And Justice for All. Lyrically it deals with paranoia. The chanted melody heard near the beginning is the "marching cadence" of the palace guards in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. This song along with "To Live is to Die" are the only songs from the ..And Justice for All album that have never been performed live in their entirety by the band (although claims have been made that a live version has been performed at Earl's Court, London, where James forgot the lyrics half-way through).

On the Live Shit: Binge & Purge performance the song is used as an encore. After leaving the set bassist Jason Newsted begins playing a shortened version of the song's intro melody on his bass which induces the fans into singing the melodic chant that begins the song. As the chant grows louder the band returns to the stage and begins playing the song. However the performance is short as the band forgets how to play the song and Hetfield jokingly states, "Hey, that's all we know!" This abrupt end to the song adds to the band's statement of not playing some of the songs from the album live because of their complexity.