Released June 23, 2003 Recorded May, 2002-April, 2003 | Format CD single, Vinyl Genre Heavy metal | |
B-side "Commando"
"Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World"
"Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue"
"Cretin Hop"
"We're a Happy Family" Length 7:21 (album version)
5:41 (radio edit) | ||
"St. Anger" is a song by American heavy metal group Metallica. It was released in June 2003 as the lead single from their eighth studio album of the same name. It won Best Metal Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards and was also nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park.
This song provided the theme for WWE's SummerSlam 2003; the music video was also included in the pay-per-view DVD.
The lyric "Fuck it all and fuckin' no regrets, I hit the lights on these dark sets" may be a reference to two other Metallica songs, "Damage, Inc." (Master of Puppets) and "Hit the Lights" (Kill 'Em All).
Music video
The "St. Anger" video, directed by The Malloys, was shot in San Quentin State Prison, California. The band played at various locations in the area to hundreds of enthusiastic inmates. It is also the first Metallica video to feature bassist Robert Trujillo who joined just prior to filming.
The video begins with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich starting the beat saying "En, to, tre, fire!" (taken from the live in studio performance of "The Unnamed Feeling") which translated from Danish means "One, two, three, four!" At the end of the video there's the sentence: "For all the souls impacted by San Quentin, your spirit will forever be a part of Metallica."
It won a 2003 Metal Edge Readers' Choice Award for Video of the Year.