Metallica: Ranking Every Album’s Last Song
6. The Struggle Within - Metallica
Metallica's self-titled fifth album (more commonly known as The Black Album) contains some of their best known and best loved songs. Unfortunately, "The Struggle Within" is not one of them.
The song has only been played by the band 20 times in concert, whilst other Black Album tracks - "Enter Sandman", "Sad But True", "Nothing Else Matters" etc. - have gone onto become pillars of their live shows.
Still, that doesn't make it a bad song.
Beginning with military style drums, the song starts of slowly before jumping into a classic Metallica rhythm. The vocals are clear enough to hear the lyrics, but crunchy enough to have some bite to them, and the instrumentation is strong, if a little forgettable.
It's the lyrical content though that puts this song above its rivals. It's a lot more concise, more personal than the grand themes of other tracks on this list, making you more connected with the song's protagonist.
"The Struggle Within" would have stood out more on a lesser Metallica album, but it's still a fine song. Was it the best choice to end things with? No, but that's the band's fault, not the song's.