Lyrics for The God That Failed as interpreted by elmoz

The God That Failed Lyrics
Pride you took
Pride you feel
Pride that you felt when youd kneel

Not the word
Not the love
Not what you thought from above

It feeds
It grows
It clouds all that you will know
Deceit
Deceive
Decide just what you believe

I see faith in your eyes
Never your hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail

Follow the God that failed

Find your peace
Find your say
Find the smooth road in your way

Trust you gave
A child to save
Left you cold and him in grave

It feeds
It grows
It clouds all that you will know
Deceit
Deceive
Decide just what you believe

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail

Follow the God that failed

I see faith in your eyes
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail

Follow the God that failed

Pride you took
Pride you feel
Pride that you felt when youd kneel

Trust you gave
A child to save
Left you cold and him in grave

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by deepened nail

Follow the God that failed

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King Nothing
04-10-2002

Rated 0 
About Jaymz's mother who died of cancer when she refused medical attention because she "had faith".

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1 Reply
Jigokusabre
04-12-2002

Rated 0 
That wouldn't explain "trust you gave; a child to save; left you cold and him in grave"

I think its about a mother's grief and disbeleif after her Christian Science beleifs prevented her from saving her child.

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King Nothing
05-05-2002

Rated 0 
Well that was the meaning I got from a site.

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Newsoul
07-06-2002

Rated -3 
This lyrics are not good !

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SilentAenima
07-25-2002

Rated 0 
It is about James' mother who died from cancer.

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UnForGiven
08-07-2002

Rated 0 
These lyrics are good! it IS about James' mother who died from cancer because she was a christian scientist and she believed god would heal her and died, but the lyric about "Trust you gave; a child to save; left you cold and him in grave" COULD mean James, that because of his mother's trust in god to heal her and she left him alone when she died and a part of the child that believed in god died in him too...
"I hear faith in your cries" explains whilst she cried in pain, she had faith that didn't save her...anyway that's what I think

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Shaz_85
09-12-2002

Rated +1 
I've been reading everyone's interpretations of the meanings of metallica's songs, and honestly, most of you are so far off the mark you'd put shame to their name!
This song, while it may be reflection of Hetfield's mother's faith, it shows no indication it has any closer connection. The song is about those people in general who put too much faith in god, and refuse to accept the help of technology and science (the healing hand held back by the deepened nail), and the one who was sick ends up dying (the son), thus god, and faith, failed. It's about people relying too much on religion for healing. It's something i feel strongly about too. But i don't think it has any closer connection to Hetfield's particular situation.

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frostedflakes098
03-04-2003

Rated 0 
Shaz_85 gots a point...Hetfield wrote this song BECAUSE of his mother, but that doesnt mean its specifically ABOUT her.

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Grimson
03-08-2003

Rated 0 
I do believe you guys have pretty much made the two main points about this song. I would just like to comment on the harmonies on this song in particular. It has a pretty cool dynamic of James going slightly first and Jason almost answering his words. To me, this has a subtle tone of James questioning God and God answering back. but that's just my opinion...

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paulothemanio
04-21-2003

Rated 0 
I always just assumed this was a fairly straight forward typical heavy metal anti-christian song.

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af_zero_gf
07-05-2004

Rated 0 
i think its about bumble bees an dragonflys

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Bi0hazard
10-05-2004

Rated 0 
It is about the death of James' mother it was never initially meant to be released james once said he wrote it and kirk heard him playing it and the rest forced him into making it into a released song

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Phyxius
11-02-2004

Rated 0 
I see a connect to Bush...

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ICreepXTheLand
11-17-2004

Rated 0 
Even though it's been more than two years, I don't quite agree with the comment about "the healing hand beld back by the deepened nail" referring to science and medicine. I thought it referred more to Christ, who supposedly went around healing people and performing miracles. Hence when he was crucified, his healing hand was held back by a deepened nail.

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¿ShAwN?
12-02-2004

Rated 0 
how is this connected to bush...it was released 9 years before he was president....

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Baseball_cocconut
12-07-2004

Rated 0 
George Orwell actually refers to Karl Marx as the "God who Failed" in that in theory Communism is a workable notion in that all people are equal, however in practice it is severely corrupt due to human nature. I'm not sure if this helps explain the song

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++StUdEd DeAd++
12-26-2004

Rated 0 
I'm not sure about the whole thing about it being about Hetfields mum guess it could be if what you're talking abouts true but i've just got a dvd of the making of the black album and it's got a part on saying about the god that failed and its about when James was at school his parents made him a medical christian so he couldn't do stuff like stay in lessons talking about health because god would decide and all that so it made him feel alienated.

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poursomesugaronme
01-16-2005

Rated 0 
studded dead is right, its about how he was a Christian Scientisst n shit, n felt alien8ed at school.

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sixstringshredder
02-07-2005

Rated 0 
I think it's just about how disgusted he is with people that have too much faith.

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Idicious
03-28-2005

Rated 0 
The song as has been said is James dealing with his mothers death, and probebly a lot of other frustrations based around that that came up when she died. So it's as has also been said not necisarily only about his mother, but about the subject in general and his frustrations with it.

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Idicious
03-28-2005

Rated 0 
Phyxius, this was written wayyyyy before bush.

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MetallibangeR
04-07-2005

Rated 0 
I think that its about MetallicA. To me MetallicA used to be a God until they sold out. The Metalligod has failed. Its sad but true. Now their music is fucking garbage. St. anger is a piece of fucking shit.

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lyricstudent
04-09-2005

Rated 0 
This song is yet another reason why the Black album was so great..

My least favorite songs: Enter Sandman, Sad But True..

The best songs are like this one - most dumb fans consider it the "album filler"..

But when I hear lyrics like "The healing hand held back by the deepened nail", it catches my attention, and there's a lot to these black album "fillers" that the masses will never notice.. And the fans who believe the black album was a "sellout" never appreciate just how good this stuff really is.

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paulthebum
04-09-2005

Rated 0 
I've seen it said a lot that this song is about James's mother and her death, but I agree with Shaz.

It seems possible that this may also be about Communism. Some time after WWII a group of writers wrote a book titles "The God That Failed," which spoke of their loss of faith in communism as a form of government. Some of Metallica's songs do touch on political nerves, and also, the Soviet Union collapsed only two years before the release of this album. Still, though, some of the lyrics don't seem to make much sense with this interpretation.

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dukebball3326
04-10-2005

Rated 0 
I think this is about James' mother's death. About the lines that Jigokusabre questioned:

"trust you gave;" - The trust James' mom gave to God
"a child to save;" - James' mom was a child of God that God needed to save
"left you cold and him in grave" - Left his mom dead and Christ in the grave, meaning that he didn't ascend to conquer sin and death

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