Enter Sandman

"Enter Sandman" is a song by American metal band Metallica, featured as the opening track and lead single from their eponymous 1991 album. The song was produced by Bob Rock, and the music was written by Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, and James Hetfield. Vocalist and guitarist Hetfield wrote the lyrics, which deal with nightmares. The single achieved gold certification for more than 500,000 copies shipped in the United States, spurring sales of over 15 million copies for Metallica and propelling Metallica to worldwide popularity. Acclaimed by critics, the song is featured in all of Metallica's live albums and DVDs released after 1991 and has been played live at award ceremonies and benefit concerts. Known cover versions of the song: - Richard Cheese - Enter Sandman - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Enter Sandman - Pat Boone - Enter Sandman The original lyrics of this song were about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The line "Off to Never—, Neverland" originally was "Disrupt the perfect family", but the band's producer Bob Rock convinced James Hetfield to change it to make the song more accessible and meaningful. Neverland is the name of the magical world where Peter Pan, the main character of the same-titled story, lives. With this song the band moved away from their previous complex sound to shorter songs. Drummer Lars Ulrich told Uncut in 2007, "The 10-minute, 12-tempo-changes side of Metallica had run its course. We wanted to streamline and simplify things." When the USA invaded Irag in 2003, this song was used to break the will of some prisoners during interrogations. Lars Ulrich commented on this, "If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you're forgetting about all the music that's to the left of us. I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon & Garfunkel". "Enter Sandman" was certified platinum and it has the most radio play of all of Metallica's songs.