10 Flawless Rock Songs That Were Never Released On An Album
3. No Leaf Clover - Metallica
By the time that Metallica made S&M, it felt like they had really started to lose their way. After losing a lot of fans by going "mainstream" with the Black Album, the last few albums were fairly hit and miss before they decided to give their tracks the full symphonic treatment. Inspiration can come from the strangest places though, and working with the orchestra gave us one of the most bombastic metal songs of the '90s during this live album.
Being a full on collaboration with arranger Michael Kamen, No Leaf Clover has all of the musicality of a classical piece without having to sacrifice the attitude of heavy metal. The minute that you hear the brass setting everything up, it's practically a blues guitar riff that has been transposed to a classical piece of music. This is still a metal song though, and the guitars hit you like a battering ram when they come in, as James Hetfield's vocal soars along with the strings.
This is also one of the most adventurous tracks that James has written lyrically, telling the story of a rough and tumble kid looking to make it big only to fall victim to every single rock star cliche in the book. Some of it may have been a bit autobiographical, but when you've been in the industry this long, you start to learn the pitfalls pretty quickly.