One (Metallica song)#Charts

{{Infobox song

| name = One

| cover = Metallica - One cover.jpg

| alt =

| border = yes

| type = single

| artist = Metallica

| album = ...And Justice for All

| B-side = "The Prince" (7")

| released = {{Start date|1989|01|10}}

| recorded = One on One (Los Angeles)

| studio =

| genre = Thrash metal

| length = * 7:27 (album version)

5:02 (radio edit){{Cite web|title=…And Justice for All (Remastered Deluxe Box Set)|url=https://open.spotify.com/album/2bKDte0I4SceROjBMtYtKV|website=spotify.com}}

| label = Elektra

| composer = * James Hetfield

Lars Ulrich

| lyricist = James Hetfield

| producer = {{hlist|Flemming Rasmussen|James Hetfield|Lars Ulrich}}

| prev_title = Eye of the Beholder

| prev_year = 1988

| next_title = Enter Sandman

| next_year = 1991

| misc = {{External music video|1={{YouTube|WM8bTdBs-cw|"One"}}}}

{{Audio sample

| type = single

| file = Metallica - One.ogg

| description = "One"

}}{{Extra album cover

| header = Alternative cover

| type = single

| cover = Metallica - One (live) cover.jpg

| border =

| alt =

| caption = "One" (live) cover

}}

"One" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica,{{Cite book |title=Legends of Rock Guitar: The Essential Reference of Rock's Greatest Guitarists |last1=Prown |first1=Pete |last2=Newquist |first2=Harvey P. |publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation |year=1997 |isbn=9780793540426 |page=226}} released as the third and final single from the band's fourth studio album, ...And Justice for All (1988). Written by band members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the song portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded—arms, legs and jaw blown off by a landmine, blind, deaf, and unable to speak or move—begging God to take his life. In the music video, attempting to communicate with the hospital staff he jolts in his bed, spelling SOS in Morse code.{{cite book |title=Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery |editor-first=William|editor-last=Irwin |page=180 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aAwd261m7a0C&pg=PA180 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=Hoboken, New Jersey|year=2009 |isbn=9781405182089 |chapter=Trapped in Myself: 'One' and the Mind-Body Problem |last=Corwin |first=Joanna}} Production of the song was done by the band alongside Flemming Rasmussen. The song was the band's first to chart in the U.S., reaching number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a number one hit in Finland.

A video for the song was introduced in January 1989 on MTV. Shot in black and white by director Michael Salomon, the video's story is intercut with scenes taken from the 1971 anti-war film Johnny Got His Gun. Due to routinely being required to pay royalty fees to continue showing the music video, Metallica bought the rights to the film. The video was ranked at number one on MTV soon after its introduction.

Metallica performed "One" for the 31st Annual Grammy Awards show broadcast from Los Angeles in 1989. The next year, the song won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, the first ever to win in that category.{{cite book |title=Who Wrote The Book Of Love? |last=Crouse |first=Richard |publisher=Doubleday Canada |location=Toronto, Ontario, Canada|year=2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyZyWKcmRhEC&pg=PT156 |page=156|isbn=9780385674423 }} The band also performed the song alongside pianist Lang Lang at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. The song is one of the band's most popular pieces and has remained a staple at live shows since the release of the album, and is the most performed song from ...And Justice for All. In March 2023, Rolling Stone ranked "One" at number 11 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time" list.{{Cite magazine |date=2023-03-13 |title=The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-heavy-metal-songs-1234688425/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313191405/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-heavy-metal-songs-1234688425/ |archive-date=2023-03-13 |access-date=2023-03-13 |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US}}

Recording and composition

"One" was written in November 1987 by Metallica's principal composers James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. The song was released in 1988 as the third and final single of the album. For the first 20 seconds of the song there are a series of sound effects with a battle theme, an artillery barrage and helicopter are heard and continues slightly over a clean tone guitar intro by Hetfield before Kirk Hammett comes in over the top with a clean-toned solo. Ulrich's drums come in and continues until each chorus, when the guitars become heavy and distorted before returning to clean. There is a second solo by Hammett halfway through the song, before lyrics cut out and the song gradually gets more heavy and distorted until the "machine gun" guitar build up (played alongside double bass drums) before the next, often highly praised, guitar solo by Hammett, and a final dual solo by Hammett and Hetfield. The song begins in {{music|time|4|4}} time, and later {{music|time|3|4}} as well as {{music|time|2|4}}.

In 1991, James Hetfield told Guitar World that he wrote the song's opening Bm-G chord change based on an idea prompted by the Venom song "Buried Alive" from their second studio album, Black Metal.

{{quote|I had been fiddling around with that B-G modulation for a long time. The idea for the opening came from a Venom song called "Buried Alive". The kick drum machine-gun part near the end wasn't written with the war lyrics in mind, it just came out that way. We started that album with Mike Clink as producer. He didn't work out so well, so we got Flemming to come over and save our asses.}}

The song starts off in a soft melodic setting, but it develops through multiple sections into heavier and faster speed metal sounds,{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_fyY6ZuyAyoC&pg=PT96 |page=96 |title=Metallica Unbound |last=Doughton |first=K. J. |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |year=2008 |isbn=9780446554589}} leading up to a tapping solo by Kirk Hammett,{{cite book |last=Pillsbury |first=Glenn |title=Damage Incorporated: Metallica and the Production of Musical Identity |publisher=Routledge |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aYi0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 |page=54 |year=2013 |isbn=9781136091148}} and a dual guitar section by Hammett and James Hetfield.

Concept

The song is based on the idea of a soldier losing all of his limbs and jaw and being unable to hear, speak, or see, set to a World War I backdrop. In an interview in New Zealand in 1989, Ulrich describes the 1971 film Johnny Got His Gun (based on the 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, who also directed the 1971 film) as having a similar theme, and this was the reason it was incorporated into the video.{{YouTube|Grxxc7_nLJA|Metallica - Interview with Lars, New Zealand 1989}}

Music video

"One" was the first Metallica song for which a music video was created. The music video, directed by Bill Pope and Michael Salomon, debuted on MTV on January 20, 1989. The video, shot in Long Beach, California on December 7, 1988, is almost entirely in black and white, and features the band performing the song in a warehouse. It features dialogue and several scenes from the 1971 film adaptation of Johnny Got His Gun. Timothy Bottoms can be seen starring as Joe Bonham, the main character in the novel (written by Dalton Trumbo and published in September 1939; the basis for the 1971 film).

Three versions of the "One" music video were made; the first (the longest, album version) contained scenes of both the band and scenes from the movie. The second was simply a shortened version of the first, and the third, often known as the "jammin' version", lacked scenes from the movie (the song and video fades at the last bridge in the third version).

Like many other music videos from Metallica, "One" puts great emphasis on the performances of the band members as musicians, with many shots of Hetfield, Jason Newsted and Hammett's hands picking and fretting. The video features the band members in a typical early Metallica fashion: playing (as if in rehearsal) in some sort of warehouse, in tight formation around Lars Ulrich's drum kit, and dressed in casual street clothes and with long untamed hair.

In the music video, both Hetfield and Hammett play ESP guitars; Newsted is on a 5-string Wal bass. Newsted plays bass with his fingers at the start of the song, and later switches to a pick.

Two of the three versions of the "One" music video appear on 2 of One, a VHS released on July 1, 1990, and both would again be featured on the band's 2006 music video compilation DVD.

The music video was ranked at number 38 on Rock on the Net: MTV: 100 Greatest Music Videos and number one on Fuse's No. 1 Countdown: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Special Edition. As of January 2025, the video has over 340 million views on YouTube.

Live performance

"One" is a fixture of the band's live performances. When played live, the song is usually played with guitars tuned down by one semitone (E-flat tuning would remain a permanent fixture of their live work since 1995) and is preceded by pyrotechnics and the same sounds of war such as machine guns, and bombs exploding as heard on the recorded version. The song also features heavy strobe lighting during the heavier half of the song, namely before the Hammett solo.

The song was also featured on S&M and S&M2, Metallica's albums of live performances in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kamen, and Michael Tilson Thomas respectively. Another notable performance was at the Grammy Awards 2014, when pianist Lang Lang accompanied the band on an acoustic grand piano.{{cite web |url=http://www.metallica.com/news/20140106-83177.asp |title=News | Grammy Awards Performance |publisher=Metallica.com |date=January 7, 2014 |access-date=December 18, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107092822/https://metallica.com/news/20140106-83177.asp |archive-date=January 7, 2014 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}

Track listing

="One" single=

{{Track listing

|headline = US 7" single

|title1 = One

|length1 = 7:24

|title2 = The Prince

|note2 = Diamond Head cover

|length2 = 4:27

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = CD single and international 12" single

|title1 = One

|length1 = 7:24

|title2 = For Whom the Bell Tolls

|note2 = live

|length2 = 4:48

|title3 = Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

|note3 = live

|length3 = 6:06

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = International 7" single and international 10" picture disc

|title1 = One

|length1 = 7:24

|title2 = Seek & Destroy

|note2 = live

|length2 = 8:42

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = 12" Gatefold

|title1 = One

|note1 = demo version

|length1 = 7:03

|title2 = For Whom the Bell Tolls

|note2 = live

|length2 = 4:48

|title3 = Creeping Death

|note3 = live

|length3 = 8:00

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = Japanese EP

|title1 = One

|length1 = 7:24

|title2 = Breadfan

|note2 = Budgie cover

|length2 = 5:43

|title3 = For Whom the Bell Tolls

|note3 = live

|length3 = 4:48

|title4 = Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

|note4 = live

|length4 = 6:06

|title5 = One

|note5 = demo version

|length5 = 7:04

}}

="One" (live) single=

{{Track listing

|headline = CD single and 12" picture disc

|title1 = One

|length1 = 7:27

|title2 = One

|note2 = demo

|length2 = 7:03

|title3 = One

|note3 = live

|length3 = 9:38

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = Cardsleeve

|title1 = One

|note1 = edit

|length1 = 4:59

|title2 = One

|note2 = live

|length2 = 9:38

}}

{{Track listing

|headline = Digipak

|title1 = One

|note1 = live

|length1 = 9:49

|title2 = Whiplash

|note2 = live

|length2 = 4:46

|title3 = For Whom the Bell Tolls

|note3 = live

|length3 = 5:50

|title4 = Last Caress

|note4 = live

|length4 = 2:25

}}

Personnel

Personnel adapted from ...And Justice For All liner notes{{cite book|title=...And Justice for All liner notes|year=1988|publisher=Vertigo Records}}

;Metallica

James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, production
Kirk Hammett – lead guitar
Jason Newsted – bass
Lars Ulrich – drums, production

; Technical Personnel

Flemming Rasmussen – production, engineering
Toby "Rage" Wright – assistant and additional engineering
Steve Thompson, Michael Barbiero – mixing
George Cowan – assistant mixing engineer
Bob Ludwig – mastering
George Marino – 1995 remastering
Reuben Cohen – 2018 remastering

Charts

=Weekly charts=

class="wikitable sortable"

!Chart (1989–1994)

!Peak
position

{{singlechart|Australia|5|artist=Metallica|song=One (Live)|access-date=April 10, 2020|note=Live version|refname="auslive"}}

Denmark (IFPI){{cite magazine|url=https://www.americanradiohistory.com/UK/Music-and-Media/90s/1994/MM-1994-05-21.pdf|title=Top 10 Sales in Europe|magazine=Music & Media|volume=11|issue=21|page=24|date=May 21, 1994|access-date=April 10, 2020}}

|align="center"|5

Europe (Eurochart Hot 100){{cite magazine|url=https://www.americanradiohistory.com/UK/Music-and-Media/90s/1994/MM-1994-05-28.pdf|title=Eurochart Hot 100 Singles|magazine=Music & Media|volume=11|issue=22|page=17|date=May 28, 1994|access-date=April 10, 2020}}

|align="center"|9

Finland (Suomen virallinen lista){{cite magazine |date=May 21, 1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TAgEAAAAMBAJ&q=hits+of+the+world |title=Billboard Hits of the World - Continued |magazine=Billboard |page=43 |access-date=January 17, 2012}}

|align="center"|1

{{singlechart|Germany|31|artist=Metallica|song=One|songid=2788|access-date=May 28, 2019}}

{{singlechart|Ireland2|12|artist=Metallica|access-date=November 13, 2019}}

{{singlechart|Dutch100|3|artist=Metallica|song=One|access-date=November 13, 2019}}

Spain (AFYVE){{cite book|last=Salaverri|first=Fernando|title=Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002|edition=1st|date=September 2005|publisher=Fundación Autor-SGAE|location=Spain|isbn=84-8048-639-2}}

|align="center"|14

{{singlechart|UKsinglesbyname|13|artist=Metallica|access-date=December 18, 2016}}

{{singlechart|Billboardhot100|35|artist=Metallica|access-date=December 18, 2016}}

{{singlechart|Billboardmainstreamrock|46|artist=Metallica|song=One}}

=Year-end charts=

class="wikitable sortable"

!Chart (1994)

!Position

Europe (Eurochart Hot 100){{cite magazine|url=https://www.americanradiohistory.com/UK/Music-and-Media/90s/1994/MM-1994-12-24.pdf|title=1994 in Review – Sales Charts|magazine=Music & Media|volume=11|issue=52|page=24 (of PDF)|date=December 24, 1994|access-date=April 10, 2020}}

|align="center"|76

Netherlands (Dutch Top 40){{cite web|url=https://www.top40.nl/bijzondere-lijsten/top-100-jaaroverzichten/1994|title=Top 100-Jaaroverzicht van 1994|publisher=Dutch Top 40|access-date=August 18, 2021}}

|align="center"|15

Netherlands (Single Top 100){{cite web|url=https://dutchcharts.nl/jaaroverzichten.asp?year=1994&cat=s|title=Jaaroverzichten – Single 1994|publisher=MegaCharts|language=nl|access-date=April 10, 2020}}

|align="center"|21

Sweden (Sverigetopplistan){{cite web|url=https://www.sverigetopplistan.se/chart/43?dspy=1994&dspp=1|title=Arlista Singlar, 1994|language=sv|website=Sverigetopplistan|access-date=May 23, 2019}}

|align="center"|28

Certifications

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Australia|type=single|award=Platinum|number=4|relyear=1989|certyear=2024|access-date=8 March 2024|refname="ARIA"}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Denmark|type=single|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=1989|certyear=2023|id=13220|access-date=November 28, 2023}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|type=single|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=2008|certyear=2024|id=9211-2158-1|note=2008 digital release|access-date=June 24, 2024}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Spain|type=single|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=1989|certyear=2024|access-date=November 12, 2024|refname=PROMUSICAE}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|type=single|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=1998|certyear=2008|digital=true|note=Digital|access-date=July 20, 2021|refname=RIAA}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|type=ringtone|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=2005|certyear=2012|note=Mastertone|access-date=July 20, 2021|certref=}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|type=single|artist=Metallica|title=One|award=Gold|relyear=1989|certyear=1990|note=Physical|access-date=July 20, 2021|certref=}}

Honors

"One" was voted as the seventh of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" of all time by readers of Guitar World, placed between "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses (sixth) and "Hotel California" by the Eagles (eighth).[http://guitar.about.com/od/guitaristsatoz/tp/100-Greatest-Guitar-Solos.htm "100 Greatest Guitar Solos"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121118210038/http://guitar.about.com/od/guitaristsatoz/tp/100-Greatest-Guitar-Solos.htm |date=November 18, 2012 }}. About.com. Retrieved December 8, 2005.
In 2011, a poll held by Gibson ranked the song the eighth greatest heavy metal song of all time.{{Cite web |url=http://www.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/top-50-metal-0318-2011.aspx |title=Full Top 50 Metal Songs List |access-date=20 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161028220122/http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/top-50-metal-0318-2011.aspx |archive-date=28 October 2016 |url-status=dead }}
In 2002, 2009, 2011 and 2012, "One" was voted by listeners of the New Zealand radio station The Rock as the greatest rock song of all time.[http://www.therock.net.nz/Music/Countdowns/TheRock1000/tabid/728/Default.aspx "Rock 1000 Countdown 2009"]. The Rock 1000. Retrieved September 11, 2009.
"One" was nominated for and won the first ever Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1990.MacDonald, Patrick (January 12, 1990). [https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19900112/1050383/soundgarden-nomination-the-growth-of-local-rock "Soundgarden Nomination: The Growth of Local Rock"]. The Seattle Times. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
The comedy rock duo Tenacious D's song Tribute mentions the best song in the world, which the duo has stated in interviews was inspired by Metallica's song.{{Citation|last=Guitarings|title=Guitarings - Viewer Mailbag - 10/4/11|date=October 4, 2011|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIcSKrfNaEg| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211102/aIcSKrfNaEg| archive-date=November 2, 2021 | url-status=live|access-date=November 2, 2018}}{{cbignore}}