Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

From MetallicaWiki

Welcome Home (Sanitarium) is the fourth track on Metallica's 1986 album Master Of Puppets.

Keeping with the theme of powerlessness of "Master of Puppets", the lyrics portray one being trapped in insanity, or perhaps trapped in a mental asylum. Hetfield said he actually wrote it as tribute to the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and that the style was to create a "slow, clean, picking type of song" similar to Fade To Black, but "this time with a chorus". The song begins slowly with harmonics, which eventually leads into the main riff followed by the bass guitar, drums and solo. The lyrics progress and become more harsh, backed by harsher vocals (in comparison to the cleaner vocals of the song) and heavily distorted guitars. The song ends with several guitar solos, two heavy and fast drum solos by Lars Ulrich, and a few lyrics that hint about an uprising in the asylum.

The original demo version of this song features an extended ending which is eventually used as bass and guitar solos in the song Orion.

In the later 1990s, Metallica would often combine the song with Master Of Puppets in concert, calling it "Mastertarium".

Lyrics

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

Notes

Written By: Hetfield/Ulrich/Hammett
Copyright © 1986 Creeping Death Music (ASCAP)
International Copyright Secured
All Rights Reserved