Mockabee 1

Owen Mockabee
Professor Leonard
ENG 1201.507
12 February 2022

A Heavy Metal Classic & Its Haunting Remake

The slashing guitars and pounding drums of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” has been one

of the most recognizable tunes for the past three decades. It is especially popular among young

adults who are typically heavy metal fans. The powerful instrumental pieces often cause the

lyrics to be overlooked. The lyrics create a claim children feel threatened by the world around

them. In the original Metallica version of the song, the music video’s use of mythical creatures

creates the idea that that the threatening feeling that children have is not legitimate. The remake

of “Enter Sandman” by SHEL puts a new spin on the song by creating a haunting tone that leads

the viewer to believe that children are justified in being afraid of world around them.

The lyrics of “Enter Sandman” creates the claim that children feel threatened by the

world around them. Lyrics that describe this threating feeling are “Sleep with one eye open,

Gripping your pillow tight.” These lyrics describe the frightened feeling that many kids have

when they go to bed at night. This feeling is created by the vast world that kids struggle to

understand. Kids being freighted by the world around them is important for the young parents

who are the target audience for this song to understand.

Two music videos for the song created by Metallica in 1991 and by SHEL in 2012,

contain imagery that support the idea that children feel threatened by the world around them.

The Metallica video displays many threating scenes including images of a child running from

different dangers including a semi-truck. These sources of danger like the big truck show how
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the vastness of the world is threatening to children. Seeing a child running from danger is a great

appeal to Pathos because it triggers the emotions of parents who want to protect their children.

The SHEL video shows how the world can feel lonely by seeing a young lady all by herself

surrounded by a cold, rocky environment. The isolation of the young lady in a cold place shows

how the world can feel cold and empty to kids when they are first exposed to the evil things that

happen. The appeal to Pathos through the vivid imagery of both videos cements the idea that

kids feel threatened by the world around them.

Once the song has established that children feel threatened by the world around them, the

natural question for parents and others is: Are the children’s fears legitimate? The two music

videos provide different answers to this question. The original version by Metallica creates the

claim that the fears of children are not legitimate. This claim is created by an emphasis placed

on lyrics like “Hush little baby, don't say a word, And never mind that noise you heard, It's just

the beasts under your bed, In your closet, in your head.” These lyrics say that the fears of

children are not legitimate by saying the noises they are hearing are just imaginative from the

made-up monsters hiding around their rooms. The emphasis on these lyrics shows how Metallica

is trying to tell their audience that children need to ignore and overcome their irrational fears.

The music video that accompanies the Metallica song also contributes to the claim that

fears children have of the world around them are not legitimate. The music video is full of

mythical creatures and monsters including the sandman who the song is named after. These fake

creatures further the idea that the fears children have are illogical. These imaginative creatures

and monster’s underneath the bed create an appeal to Pathos by bringing adults back to the

silliness of their childhood. This idea that children’s fears are imaginative and not legitimate is

important for the target audience of parents of young kids to understand. It gives parents the
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advice that they need to demonstrate to their kids how their fears come from made-up things.

Demonstrating this to kids will allow them to get to sleep easier and enjoy their childhood.

The SHEL version of “Enter Sandman” and its accompanying music video takes a

different stance on whether children should feel threatened by the world around them. In the

video there is a young girl in a winter coat. She is on rocks that are next to a river, which is

surrounded by snowcapped mountains. This cold and isolated environment creates the claim that

children should feel threatened by the world around them. This claim is contributed to by the

slow haunting pace that the song occurs at. The different slower style of this version that SHEL

created, brings the important message about childhood fears to an audience that prefers slower

music. The claim that the fears of children are legitimate created by this slow, haunting version

of “Enter Sandman” also has an important impact on parents. By establishing that childhood

fears of the world are legitimate, the SHEL version of “Enter Sandman” suggests that children

should be sheltered from the brutal nature of the world until they are prepared to deal with the

harsh reality of the world.

The heavy metal version of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica is a song that has carried on

for generations. The slashing guitars, banging drums, and constant references to mythical

creatures creates a very bold song that uses the Pathos rhetorical appeal to suggest that children

should not feel threatened by the world around them. The slow, haunting remake of the song by

SHEL gives the song a different spin by using the Pathos rhetorical appeal to claim that children

should feel threatened by the world around them. These two different versions of “Enter

Sandman” demonstrate how a song can be transformed to fit a different audience and purpose.
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Works Cited

“Metallica - Enter Sandman Lyrics | AZLyrics.com.” www.azlyrics.com,

www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/entersandman.html.

“Metallica: Enter Sandman (Official Music Video).” Youtube, uploaded by Metallica, 9 March

2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384

SHEL. “SHEL – Enter Sandman (Official Video).” Youtube, uploaded by iLoveSHELmusic, 7

April 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPeHTdrBYQ