“The teacher would say, ‘OK, get out your health books,’ and I would have to leave. My parents told me a little speech to say about our religion and why, and I didn’t believe it”: How Metallica turned childhood trauma into a decades-spanning trilogy

James Hetfield performing onstage with Metallca in 1992.

All of the best things come in threes. Lord Of The Rings films, Nirvana albums… God. The heavy metal world proves this as well, thanks to Metallica and their soul-searching trilogy, The Unforgiven. Originally written as a way for singer/guitarist James Hetfield to express his childhood alienation and passion for country, it’s now a decades-spanning saga, each entry finding the fire-spewing stars at their most vulnerable and adventurous.

The series kicked off in 1991, when the original Unforgiven was the fourth track on Metallica’s blockbuster Black Album. However, its story truly starts on August 3, 1963: the day Hetfield was born in Downey, California. His father left the family when he was 13 and his mother, a Christian Scientist who refused medical treatment even as she battled cancer, died when he was 16. The Unforgiven was a declaration of how isolated his parents’ faith made him feel when he was a kid.