Modern-Day Epics

It has been brought to my attention that apparently I can't share docs with just anyone via Google Docs, they need to log in and stuff. So, I am posting my essay on how epic Painkiller by Judas Priest is, linked to from my post on epic music, here:

Throughout history, people have enjoyed stories as means of understanding the world around them, or escaping to different ones. The culmination of the tradition of storytelling is the epic. Epics are stories on the largest possible scale: tales of great heroes, fierce battles, and larger-than-life adventures. They have been told in the form of poetry (such as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad), literature (as in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings), or film (Ben-Hur). Increasingly, however, the relatively new art form of music has taken up the epic tradition.

One classic example of this is British heavy metal band Judas Priest’s Painkiller, from the 1990 album of the same name. The song begins fairly unusually with a fast-paced drum solo, unaccompanied by any other instrument. Packed with time signature changes and virtuosic precision, the solo establishes from the beginning that this is no ordinary heavy metal song—it’s something bigger, heavier, more powerful. Soon the guitar soars in and the bulk of the song begins. The verses are occupied by generally the same guitar riff—a sixteen-note pattern that seems to switch between three and two-note time, but stays in time with the rapid sixteenth notes of the bass and snare drums, which add a textural speed and urgency to the background of the whole song. Through it all, the instrumentation sounds huge; the heavily amplified and distorted guitar constantly resounds, creating a dense, thundering sonic atmosphere. From the start, the song sounds huge and of great importance.

The vocals follow a similar pattern. The lyrics of the song are about as fantastical and over-the-top as even metal gets, depicting the exceptionally violent and loud salvation of humanity by the godlike metal messiah, Painkiller. The setting is the final stand of mankind against an indescript evil force, certainly a familiar one for epics. The song is packed with superlatives; the Painkiller is described as “faster than a bullet”, “louder than an atom bomb”, and “brighter than a thousand suns”. Priest’s exceptionally talented vocalist Rob Halford considerably adds to the power of the song in his delivery of these lyrics, singing almost entirely in a screeching, yet melodic falsetto. Where other metal songs might use screamed vocals to add special emphasis to certain lines, Halford applies this technique to virtually the whole song. There is no poetic depth to uncover here; the message is clear: This is it. Everything hinges on this avatar of metal; all the chips are down; this is the final battle. Lyrics of lesser songs seem insignificant by comparison.

The intensity and drama never let up as the song unfolds. After a few verses and choruses introducing the dire state of the human race and the Painkiller, we get to a new, bridge-like section. Though the lyrical theme is similar, continuing to describe the fury of the Painkiller, the intensity of the song rises even further as the guitar and bass drum fire away at maximum speed and the last line of the vocals rises from the regular pitch we’ve been hearing to an impossibly high, held note. The guitar and snare drum begin playing, but constantly speed up. Just when we thought the song was beyond anything before it, it keeps becoming more, faster, higher, louder.

The purpose of all this is to build anticipation for the climax: the guitar solo. The increasingly rapid-fire notes of the bridge abruptly give way to incredibly quick guitar shredding. What follows is a solo to end all solos; loud, complex, and at nearly a minute and a half, incredibly long. Several times the main riff of the song is heard repeated in a higher key and with some variations before fading back into the solo. It’s about as over-the-top as metal got, and certainly the focal point of the song; after all, it represents the incredibly loud, powerful, and destructive battle of the Painkiller against the forces of evil.

Immediately after the solo ends, the main guitar riff resumes, along with the vocals. The battle is won; humanity is given hope once more and is free to rebuild from the devastation the Painkiller inadvertently incurred. After this the chorus repeats twice, with different lyrics further describing the metallic awesomeness of the Painkiller, after which we hear the quickening pre-chorus again. Instead of another solo, the guitar plays the main riff alone and in a lower key with occasional drum thrashing interspersed. On top of this is the chorus, but this time it’s sung more normally in an intensifying shout that soon builds back up into Halford’s falsetto screams. Just as they reach their height, we get the expected solo, albeit a much shorter one than before. As the solo fades away, Halford offers a final ultimatum: “Can’t stop the Painkiller,” holding the last syllable for nearly 20 seconds as the drums go wild with a solo that accelerates to seemingly impossible speeds.

All told, Painkiller is an extraordinary heavy metal song that extends the tradition of the epic into the musical realm. The apocalyptic story its lyrics tell lives up to the epics of old in scale, power, and weight, making even Priest’s other lyrics seem inconsequential by comparison. The bombastic guitars and bass-heavy drumming, blisteringly fast and virtuosic in musicianship, are similarly beyond that heard in other songs, even other metal songs. Everything is beyond the impossible; an impossibly long solo, impossibly fast drumming, Rob Halford’s impossible vocal skills. All of these elements and more would soon be adopted by power metal, a whole genre arguably devoted to the epic tradition in one way or another, but Painkiller is one of the songs that would define this sound. Film and literature continue to have their moments, but today music has become a consistent teller of epics.