Metallica "Until It Sleeps (Japanese Single & Video)"

"Until It Sleeps" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on May 21, 1996 as the lead single from their 1996 album, Load. It was the band's first number one song on the US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, as well as their first and only song as of the release of Hardwired... to Self-Destruct to hit the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, debuting and peaking at number 10. The song also peaked atop the charts of Denmark, Finland, Australia and Sweden, becoming the band's only number-one hit in the latter two countries.

The song was performed with orchestral accompaniment on the album S&M.

An early demo version of this song was entitled "F.O.B.D." (recorded on December 8, 1995), because it reminded the band members of the Soundgarden song "Fell on Black Days", in that the "It grips you...It stains you..." refrain is in the same 6/4 time signature that "Fell on Black Days" is in. The band can be heard saying "Fell on Black Days" on the fanclub-only Fancan 1 CD just prior to jamming on a portion of "Until It Sleeps". The 10" vinyl version of the single is red in color.

Moby, credited as "Herman Melville", did an industrial-sounding remix used as a B-side.

"Until It Sleeps" became the first "officially" pirated MP3 when it was released by Compress ’Da Audio (a piracy group and spinoff of the Warez scene) via an Internet Relay Chat network on August 10, 1996. An EFnet member on the #mpeg3 IRC channel named Coyote666 was responsible for creating the first mp3 ripping software.

The song also has a music video directed by Samuel Bayer (Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins). It was shot in various locations around Los Angeles on May 6 and 7 in 1996. It was premiered by MTV on May 21. The video depicts surreal concepts dealing with the fall of man, taken from various paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. Apart from the general forms inspired from Bosch's paintings, the prominent figures in the video are the human-eating monster from The Garden of Earthly Delights, the fall of Adam and Eve from Haywain and Christ in the Crucifige Eum (Crucify Him) scene of Ecce Homo.

The video of the song won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video in 1996.

The song won a 1996 Metal Edge Readers' Choice Award for Song of the Year.

Track listing

US single

1. "Until It Sleeps"   4:36
2. "Overkill" 4:08

Track 2 recorded live on December 13th, 1995 directly to a two-track at The Plant Studios in Sausalito, California during rehearsal for Lemmy's 50th Birthday Party at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles, California.

International single part one

1. "Until It Sleeps" 4:33
2. "2 X 4" (Live - Escape from the studio '95) 6:06
3. "F.O.B.D." (aka Until It Sleeps – early 'writing in progress' version) 4:56

International single part two

1. "Until It Sleeps" 4:36
2. "Kill/Ride Medley" (Live - Escape from the studio '95) 10:19
3. "Until It Sleeps" (Herman Melville Mix) 4:20

Japanese EP

1. "Until It Sleeps" 4:35
2. "Until It Sleeps" (Herman Melville Mix) 4:22
3. "Kill/Ride Medley" (Live - Escape from the studio '95) 10:19
4. "2 X 4" (Live - Escape from the studio '95) 6:08
5. "Overkill" (Live) 4:11
6. "F.O.B.D." (aka Until It Sleeps – early 'writing in progress' version) 4:56