Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

"Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" is a power ballad by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as the third and final single from their third album, Master of Puppets. It was Metallica's last single to feature bassist Cliff Burton. It is track four on the album, and it keeps traditions set by "Fade to Black", as shown in the composition article below.

Meaning of the song
Keeping with the theme of powerlessness of "Master of Puppets", the lyrics portray one being trapped in insanity, or perhaps trapped in a mental asylum. Hetfield said he actually wrote it as tribute to the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and that the style was to create a "slow, clean, picking type of song" similar to "Fade to Black", but "this time with a chorus".

Composition
The song begins slowly with guitar harmonics, which eventually leads into the main riff followed by the bass guitar, drums and solo. The lyrics progress and become more harsh, backed by harsher vocals (in comparison to the cleaner vocals of the song) and heavily distorted guitars. The song ends with several guitar solos, two heavy and fast drum solos by Lars Ulrich, and a few lyrics that hint about an uprising in the asylum. Like "Fade to Black", "One", and "The Day That Never Comes", the song starts off slow and clean, but becomes heavier and faster as it progresses.

The original demo version of this song features an extended ending which is eventually used as bass and guitar solos in the song "Orion".

Live performance
Sanitarium is tied with Battery as being Metallica's 10th most-played song. The first performance was on March 27, 1986 in Wichita, Kansas. As of December 9, 2012, the song has been performed 862 times (the most recent being October 27, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Voodoo Music Festival. )

In the early 2000s, Metallica would often combine the song with "Master of Puppets" in concert, calling it "Mastertarium".

In popular culture
The song's intro can be heard during the Bass/Guitar Doodle on Cunning Stunts which led into "Nothing Else Matters".

"Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" is used as background music for the film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, which details the controversial West Memphis Three murder case, as the three boys listened to heavy metal. It has been used as the music for the opening credits for all 3 films, and is a theme of sorts for the series.

Covers

 * Anthrax
 * Apocalyptica (from Plays Metallica by Four Cellos)
 * Bullet for My Valentine (from The Poison re-issue bonus track, later included on Kerrang!'s Master of Puppets remastered compilation)
 * Corey Taylor (Slipknot/Stone Sour) Live cover
 * John Marshall, Mikkey Dee, Tony Levin, Scott Ian and Whitfield Crane for Metallic Assault: A Tribute to Metallica.
 * Limp Bizkit (for the Metallica Tribute Concert and MTV Metallica Icon feature in 2003 and Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003)
 * Dream Theater (from the bootleg Master of Puppets where the entire Master of Puppets album is performed live)
 * Razed in Black
 * Thunderstone (from A Tribute to the Four Horsemen cover album.)
 * Machine Head
 * Primus
 * Power metal band Blind Guardian quoted the lines "Welcome to where time stands still / No one leaves and no one (ever) will" in the song "Blood Tears" from their album Nightfall in Middle-Earth.
 * Metal Force (bonus track from Metal Rebirth)
 * Sampled by Lost Boyz in "Colabo", from their album LB IV Life

Personnel

 * James Hetfield - lead vocals, rhythm guitar
 * Lars Ulrich - drums
 * Cliff Burton - bass
 * Kirk Hammett - lead guitar