Welcome to where time stands still
No one leaves and no one will
Moon is full, never seems to change
Just labeled mentally deranged
Dream the same thing every night
I see our freedom in my sight
No locked doors, no windows barred
No things to make my brain seem scarred

Sleep my friend and you will see
That dream is my reality
They keep me locked up in this cage
Can't they see it's why my brain says rage

Sanitarium, leave me be
Sanitarium, just leave me alone

Build my fear of what's out there
Cannot breathe the open air
Whisper things into my brain
Assuring me that I'm insane
They think our heads are in their hands
But violent use brings violent plans
Keep him tied, it makes him well
He's getting better, can't you tell

No more can they keep us in
Listen, damn it, we will win
They see it right, they see it well
But they think this saves us from our hell

Sanitarium, leave me be
Sanitarium, just leave me alone
Sanitarium, just leave me alone!

Fear of living on
Natives getting restless now
Mutiny in the air
Got some death to do
Mirror stares back hard
Kill, it's such a friendly word
Seems the only way
For reaching out again!



Lyrics submitted by elmoz, edited by RyanWolfeh

Track duration: 06:25


Welcome Home (Sanitarium) song meanings
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  • 0
    Memory:Well, I relate to this song, too. growing up with a family member that is close to you that is like 98% gifted and being the idiot of the family (Having my father thourougly convinced Im Mentally ill, hell flip out on me for no reason and shout "YOU HAVE A MENTAL PROBLEM!" or "YOURE A HEADCASE!" and thats where the "Sanitarium, Leave me be...." part ties in for me)And the second verse describes how i'm determined to show the world that I am worth something too, (The "Listen,Damnit, We will win" Part)and the last part, the "mirror stares back Hard....." Suits how in the end i always think: "Who am I kidding? I'll never be good enough" The thoughts of giving up. It is an excellent song. I love it.
    Flag ZombieQueenon May 21, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think lines like "dream the same dream every night" and "fear of living on" suggest the person is a guy in an asylum with some kind Of disorder. It also seems to deal with how he is treated as a patient.
    Flag Gam3fr3ak96on December 27, 2010   Link
  • +1
    My Interpretation:I feel it calls our entire existence the sanitarium. How the general population is controlled and exploited by the government. How those who rebel are made to seem crazy.

    People do not use logic and reason but preconceptions and peer pressure to determine such a thing and it helps them keep us in a bubble.

    But the song refuses to give in, with frustration trying to rally the people to wake up and take charge.
    Flag Pizawleon October 31, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Ok I am a big metallica fun and I came up with this little story based on the titles of metallica songs. the titles are in capital letters.


    I park my 2*4 and step out, home at last but I’m in a FRANTC state thinking about my narrow ESCAPE. I get into the house and I drink some of my WHISKEY in a JAR but that doesn’t ease the pain clearly caused by the THORN WITHIN. At this point even i know the only solutions to deal with the STRUGGLE WITHIN. In the SMALL HOURS of the morning I stare into the dark night and see ORION, but now is not the time to think about ASTRONOMY the pain is too much it feels like I'm TRAPPED UNDER ICE yet I cant seem to convince myself that its my fault, betrayed by who i thought was a friend and betrayed by THE JUDAS KISS now I go towards my bed in this old rugged house, how am I supposed to sleep in THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT after I shot him between the eyes and left him STONE DEAD FOREVER and at that point it felt like NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. I close my eyes and try to sleep hoping it will all just FADE to BLACK but THE MEMORY REMAINS clear to me that I will always be UNFORGIVEN and it worries me because the things i just did make me wonder AM I EVIL. This cant be I was raised right how did I turn to this BAD SEED I know what I did was wrong but I can’t feel it, it’s like I am on ANESTHESIA.

    I had lost my mind when I decided it was KILLING TIME, I ran around taking them all out high on drugs I believed I was the INVISIBLE KID and the opponents I took out one by one where DISPOSABLE HEROES. I can’t sleep so I stay up looking at the DIRTY WINDOW and start to think maybe its time I DISAPPEAR because right now I am CREEPING DEATH at any point the cops and feds will be all over looking for me. For so long I looked forward to exerting my revenge but that day seemed to be THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES nothing hurts more than taking the life of your BROTHERS IN ARMS. The pain was too much yet still I feel like the HERO OF THE DAY and I decided not to think about what others thought of me after all to the one who I was revenging I would always be the perfect PRINCE CHARMING her LOVERMAN as was the case when she lived and everyone else called me KING NOTHING. As my nerves began to calm I remember what MAMA SAID about salvation forgiveness trusting in God and THE FOUR HORSEMEN but I will not pray to THE GOD THAT FAILED seeing as he let my loved one die she truly was MY FRIEND OF MISERY so I decide to live the rest of my life with NO REMORSE.

    Knowing my fate as I step into the bathroom that bottle of CYANIDE seems appealing but I will not give up I will FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. Arrested I find myself locked in a SANATARIUM because the cops couldn’t believe any normal person could do what I did. The DEVILS DANCE is what they called it and maybe this is where I would spend the rest of my days on THE FRAYED ENDS OF SANITY. A brilliant mind I don’t deserve to be here but what i did deserves to be punished and that is SAD BUT TRUE. At this rate I don’t think even a priest can PURIFY my soul. I think of to myself POOR TWISTED ME but I decide to not have self pity because when it comes to who killed those men I will always be the ONE. From a mother’s boy RONNIE went on to become a killer and sometimes I would think SO WHAT right until the judge decided i would RIDE the LIGHTENING. I know I am SOME KIND of MONSTER but do I really deserve to die. The judge is not letting me off easy as he proclaims THAT WAS JUST YOUR LIFE and now you’ve reached THE END OF THE LINE. Alone in my cell I think it seems I have become THE OUTLAW TORN thinking about SUICIDE AND REDEMPTION what to do I cant let them kill me oh the STRUGGLE WITHIN talk about THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE. After a nights sleep I think maybe its fine after all TO LIVE IS TO DIE what is this THE UNNAMED FEELING maybe its time to TURN THE PAGE.
    Flagged shingamion October 21, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I was in a mental hospital few months ago and this song keep playing in my head. All the words make perfect sense
    Flag metalhead1980on September 26, 2010   Link
  • 0
    Memory:The song is about a sane person who becomes locked in an insane asylum, and is made insane overtime by the doctors who constantly re-enforce the message that he is insane.The treatment backfires when protagonist loses his sanity and is convinced he must kill everyone.

    A lot of people have mentioned the film One flew over the cuckoos nest, a film i have not seen. However i'd like to mention the possible connections to Stanley Kubricks A Clockwork Orange and Peter Weirs The Truman Show. Both this song and the films are about a protagonist whose mental illness is produced by the failure of the societies that imprison them, ultimately result the protagonists to defy their rules of their society through drastic measures such as murder,suicide or escape.

    As with metallica63, this song struck a personal chord with me. As a young child, my parents became concerned about the slow pace of my development, in contrast to my siblings. The doctors, teachers, and occupational therapists they spoke to said that i was intellectually disabled, and advised that i be sent to
    a school where i would be placed in a support class.Everyday my class followed a routine that involved doing mainly kindergarten things such as dancing to kids songs and watching preschooler shows. However it hit the fan about two years later in 1999, when i realized that the routine given to the whole class was not going to change and each year we would only be taught at kindergarten levels. Soon I realised my older brother,who was at a different school, was actually learning more advanced things .As the repetition of the aforementioned routines became more apparent i gradually changed from being a happy sociable person, to a frequently upset hypochondriac who would sometimes behave violently if things didn't go my way. Eventually it climaxed when my parents realized that the advice the sought out was incorrect and I was transferred to my brothers school, without an apology or an explanation from my folks and consequently I did not know this until many years later.

    When i did find out, it was in an especially painful period of my life where i was trying to cope with the fact that the relationship between me and one of my few and closest friends was broken. My friend said that the reasoning that i was overly obsessed with video games at the time. At this time, I pretty much had zero support and i did not say anything to my parents about what i was going through. During this period though, my parents at one point had to clean out their cupboards and i stumbled upon a folder containing my medical records which included several letters from the doctors who provided my diagnosis. These letters mentioned that i had displayed symptoms of autism such as obsessionality which i immediately linked to my alledged obsession with video games. The impact of these letters left me devestated. Within a handful of minutes I had been told the following things

    a. Why i spent several years in a dreadful school environment
    b. That i was born with an intellectual disability that my parents never told me about.

    and due to a lack of understanding at the time, i had the impression that
    c. My friend had left me because an external factor was interfering with the functionality of my brain and was stopping me from being myself.

    Point C was particularly important to me as i spent several years wishing i had known about the diagnosis earlier so my friend would understand my obsessionality. Consequently i lived in denial about my hobbies believing they were the result of the autism and not me being me.

    Eventually in recent years, i began bringing up my past in several conversations to my parents who explained that the doctors had mis-diagnosed me as being intellectually disabled and are trying re-enforce the message that im doing well in school. I doubt that though as I'm now considering leaving school, because i wish to avoid a repeat of the emotional traumas I've experienced. My friend came back into contact with me and confessed that he was a jerk at the time. We're now best friends.

    If any one of you have managed to read this far into my post, you're probably wondering what the point of it is. I'll say it now. The point I wish to make is that judging from my personal experiences, the song Welcome Home (Santarium) performed by James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and of course the late and sorely missed Cliff Burton, provides the warning that a mis-diagnosis and the related treatments can have a serious effect on the lives of patients especially in regards to their sense of self. The effects can be serious enough to nearly break ones sense of identity, causing their behavior to go hay wire, before they spend the rest of their lives dealing in its aftermath.











    Flag Superfreaxxon July 10, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:This song is a ballad told in the eyes of someone in an insane asylum, or sanitorium, hence the name "sanitarium". About a man who plans on taking over and breaking out "Mutiny in the air". btw Awesome solo, awesome song altogether
    Flag metallicaobsessor88on June 25, 2010   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:This song from metallica decribes a lot of the shit i believe about the mind control prison system in which we live. Listen to what he says, its all mental thinking not a physical sanitarium you would first think. The system has you until people wake up and realize what it is so we can fight it. Open your eyes the world is not what it seems.

    He is describing when you dream the world is so at peace and it just feels right, not like the awake world were your under constant control and mind manipulation. This is his peace ful dream world which is the right world. no influence just free mind dreaming. you mind cannot escape this system until you dream or fight it
    '' Welcome to where time stands still , No one leaves and no one will
    No locked doors, no windows barred , No things to make my brain seem scarred'' .

    This describes the matrix system and what it does to you.
    '' They keep me locked up in this cage
    Can't they see it's why my brain says “rage”

    '' sanitarium, leave me be ,Sanitarium, just leave me alone ''

    This describes what the government does to you and how they control you with fear and propaganda. Thing is they make people like me who understand them out to be crazy ,all because we are the real threat to them just like the always have.
    '' Build my fear of what's out there, Cannot breathe the open air
    Whisper things into my brain, Assuring me that I'm insane
    They think our heads are in their hands, But violent use brings violent plans ''

    This describes the inner locked down voice that screams lets fight back and stop them controlling us and thinking they know better.
    '' No more can they keep us in, Listen, damn it, we will win
    They see it right, they see it well, But they think this saves us from our hell
    Flag digoe04on June 03, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I conceive the lyrics slightly on James' issues with his relationships with his family, His father didn't really care and his mother died of cancer (he blamed Christianity for his mom's faith, see god that failed for more.) His parents were extremely religious and did not approve of "Rock music" and when James started his band, they freaked and then later his issues with his mother poured onto his plate and encouraged his alcoholism. The supposed "Insanity" he preaches throughout the song seems to be about the effects of Alcoholism: Short fuse, Apathy, and mood swings..so on so forth ( First verse the frozen image you get explains the apathy part and the mood swings in the choruses.) And The Second verse explains the therapy sessions he takes and the restrictions of activities and sessions that seem to last forever to him frustrate him to no end and he thinks they don't know what they're doing and they don't get him. Then in the pre-chorus leading to the second chorus explains that they start to get it but they don't know how to really fix it. And the final verse: about the natives are his friends and possibly the media, pressuring him and the mirror part seems to be about looking at himself and hating himself for what he is but he still denies that he has an issue and just has an urge to kill everything around him and getting away from it all (most of this information is from the metallica histories on their site and Wikipedia.)
    Flag xXWingsXInXWarXxon June 02, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:METALLICA'S AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Flag OrochiMaru1995on May 17, 2010   Link

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