‘Dyers Eve’ written and performed by Metallica, depicts the injustice of the world James Hetfield one of the songwriters was brought into and grew up in. The lyrics touch on the concept of the discrimination of children. It connects to children who have parents who should not be qualified for parenting. The authority that a parent can hold over you, control your every move or every word, just because they brought you into this world. The lyrics state, “Curator, Dictator. Always censoring my every move. Children are seen by not heard.” I see the true injustice in this. How parental authority tears children of their individuality. No one, not even a parent, should have the right to take away someone’s voice.
Yet if we look back to past centuries this is a rule many parents lived by. Children should be seen and not heard was the normal. Parents were often very strict and children were beaten for misbehaving. Children were sent out to work and it’s only in the last 100 years that significant changes have been made.
I feel incredibly lucky to have parents that support me and encourage me to think for myself. They guide me in my decision making but don’t shut me down for having my own voice and thoughts.
This makes me questions humans altogether and enrages me for how can a child grow if they are torn from the ability to speak. It is not fair for anyone to take someone’s right to speak whether they are family or not. I know for a fact if I had been stripped of my freedom to talk as a child I would not be the person I am today. The song’s words “ you have clipped my wings before I have learned to fly” this can be seen as nothing more simple than an injustice to one’s rights as a human being. As we grow and develop as humans this unequal authority that a parent can have over a child should be carefully watched in order to reduce the injustice.
I believe this should be monitored as the people you grow up with as your role models such as your parents are seen to shape the final result of who you turn out to be. Kids can turn out very similar to their parents. This song makes me understand how easy it is for you as an individual to accept an opinion or belief of your parents. For it is all you are brought up to know. Their beliefs on wrongs and right, in other words, their beliefs on justice is often forced onto you unintentionally by just growing around them. The song represents this in the lyric, “Pushed onto me what’s wrong or right.” This interlinks into justice as it teaches us why prejudice and stereotypes carry on through generations and how discrimination still seems to appear in our daily lives no matter how hard we argue for it to leave. It comes from the family trees of people knowing no different. Parents pass onto their kids who pass onto their kids and so on and so forth. Because from a young age each person has never been told any different this trend continues. So when I hear someone arguing about a point that is completely biased and incorrect, I now know that this is not often because of necessarily who they are (or should’ve become) it is of who they have become due to their upbringing. And it makes me wonder, do all my opinions of what is right or wrong just come from what my parents have told me all these years. Why were blacks and white kept segregated from each other for so many years in South Africa, parents told their children thats how it should be and so it was – again ‘pushed onto me what’s right or wrong” “always censoring my every move” – shutting down questioning why or challenging for change.
The true injustice of this is that you may never truly get to become an individual. Your mindset, beliefs and opinions can be projected onto you from a young age based on the beliefs of your parents. Through understanding this I have learnt that as humans sometimes we have to break free from following the line of beliefs before us and create our own individual opinions.
The song moves on to another stage where Helfied describes how the loss of his parents affected him in life. Having had them controlling him so much as a young person when they die he feels unprepared to survive in the world on his own.
“I’m in hell without you
Cannot cope without you
Shocked at the world that I see
Innocent victim – rescue me”
Having my own parents to ask for help and guidance when I need it is something that I probably take for granted. I can’t really imagine them not being there or what it would be like to suddenly be left without them.
Many artists use music as a means to express emotions, to tell their story, share with the world heartache. “ Dear Mother Dear Father Time has frozen still, what’s left to be, Hear nothing, say nothing” are really heartfelt words.
Many of us listen to music that have messages that we can connect to in some way. There are many challenges in life, conflict with family, breaking up with a boy or girlfriend, trauma grief and this is expressed in songs and people relate to these songs from their own experiences. The things that happen to us make us who we are. The things that happened to Helfield affected him for his whole life and how he wrote his songs and what he wrote about.