Song of the day for April 4, 2024

Turn the Page by Metallica is today’s featured song.

On this day in 2007 A Swedish couple ran into trouble with authorities after trying to name their baby Metallica. Michael and Karolina Tomaro went to court with the country’s National Tax Authority about naming their daughter after the rock band. The six-month-old had been baptised Metallica, but tax officials said the name was “inappropriate”. Under Swedish law, both first names and surnames need to win the approval of authorities before they can be used.

“Turn the Page” was originally recorded by Bob Seger in 1971 and released on his Back in ’72 album in 1973. It was not released as a single until Seger’s live version of the song on the 1976 Live Bullet album got released in Germany and the UK. The song became a mainstay of album-oriented rock radio stations, and still gets significant airplay on classic rock stations.

American heavy metal band Metallica released a version of the song as the first single from their 1998 Garage Inc. album. The song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for 11 consecutive weeks, the highest number of weeks Metallica has ever spent at the top until tied with Lux Aeterna in 2022; the song also reached number 2 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100. Drummer Lars Ulrich had heard the original song while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and later commented that he thought it “had James Hetfield all over it”. Metallica’s rendition is taken at much the same tempo as Seger’s, but with a heavier feel. In the cover the saxophone melody is replaced by a high slide guitar line from Kirk Hammett.

When asked about his thoughts on this version, Seger told Artisan News, “I loved it. They told me they were gonna do it, and I loved it. I really like the drums especially because our drums are really simple.”