Top 10 Metal Songs with the Best Lyrics Written By an Individual Lyricist

Some metal lyricists have written lyrics to many songs. The question of this list is what song has the best lyrics out of the songs a particular lyricist ever wrote? For example, what is the song with the best lyrics written by James Hetfield of Metallica?

I'm aware that people like different types of lyrics. I like lyrics that are insightful or poetic, or both. Also lyrics with good and/or useful messages.

Feel free to add songs with lyrics you like the most. A lyricist can be on this list with more than one song - people will vote and decide which one is the best.

(Note: Some lyrics I posted may have mistakes - I copied them from the Internet but I know that lyrics on the Net aren't always correct.)
The Top Ten
1 The Unforgiven I - Metallica (James Hetfield)

New blood joins this earth
And quickly he's subdued
Through constant pained disgrace
The young boy learns their rules
With time the child draws in
This whipping boy done wrong
Deprived of all his thoughts
The young man struggles on and on he's known
A vow unto his own
That never from this day
His will they'll take away
What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never be
Never see
Won't see what might have been
What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never free
Never me
So I dub the unforgiven

They dedicate their lives
To running all of his
He tries to please them all
This bitter man he is
Throughout his life the same
He's battled constantly
This fight he cannot win
A tired man they see no longer cares
The old man then prepares
To die regretfully
That old man here is me
What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined ...more

There are really so many to choice from, I think metal has some of the most talented lyricist, especially when you think how story based the songs can be especially in the symphonic, thrash, power, and prog sub-genres

2 Rainbow In the Dark - Dio (Dio)

When there's lightning
You know it always brings me down
Cause it's free and I see that it's me
Who's lost and never found

I cry out for magic
I feel it dancing in the light
It was cold, lost my hold
To the shadows of the night

No sign of the morning coming
You've been left on your own
Like a rainbow in the dark
A rainbow in the dark

Do your Demons, do they ever let you go?
When you've tried, do they hide deep inside?
Is it someone that you know?
You're just a picture
You're an image caught in time
We're a lie, you and I
We're words without a rhyme

There's no sign of the morning coming
You've been left on your own
Like a rainbow in the dark
Just a rainbow in the dark

When I see lightning
You know it always brings me down
Cause it's free and I see that it's me
Who's lost and never found

Feel the magic
I feel it floating in the air
But it's fear and you'll hear it ...more

I love the song, but I find it funny that Dio himself wrote it...and kinda hated it for a while.

3 Peace Sells - Megadeth (Dave Mustaine)
4 Path of Glory - Demons & Wizards (Hansi Kürsch)
5 The Glass Prison - Dream Theater (Mike Portnoy)

Lyrics are too long to post them here

6 Dance of Death - Iron Maiden (Steve Harris)

According to Iron Maiden guitarist Janick Gers, the song was inspired by the final scene of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, at the end of which "these figures on the horizon start doing a little jig, which is the dance of death". Gers explained the concept to Steve Harris and Harris wrote the lyrics.

7 Flesh and the Power It Holds - Death (Chuck Schuldiner)

I told you once
But I'll say it again
When you live the flesh
It's the beginning of the end
It will take you in
It will spit you out
Behold the flesh
And the power it holds!
Passion is a poison laced with pleasure bitter sweet
One of many faces that hide deep beneath
It will take you in
It will spit you out
Behold the flesh
And the power it holds!
Touch
Taste
Breathe
Consumed
Deja-vu
Already knew
From the first encounter
But now I know
To let go
Of words to speak no more
Like a wind
Upon your face
You can't see it but you know it's there
When beauty shows
It's ugly face
Just be prepared!
Passion burns
Like fire carried by the wind

The end of a time
A time to begin
It will take you in
It will spit you out
Behold the flesh
And the power it holds!
It builds you up
One way and tears you right back down
A time to begin
The end of a time
It will take you in
It ...more

8 Anthem - Iced Earth (Stu Block)

In your eyes I see you're desperate and in hunger
Reclaim your future, your paths uncertain
See this child is raised in hate and in anger
His eyes wide open, his rage so focused
Torn asunder, our destiny is in sight
This is the anthem to celebrate your life
The single mother, she is strained and she suffers
She slaves away her life in turmoil
The homeless man had it all and now has nothing
His spirit broken, plagued from injustice
We have the power
Make our lives what they are to be
Reconnect with our humanity
Transcend to a higher place
Accepting reality
You are the key to the life that you seek

9 The Raven Child - Avantasia (Tobias Sammet)

Lyrics are too long to be posted here

10 Wherever I May Roam - Metallica (James Hetfield)

This song has great lyrics.

The Contenders
11 Song of Myself - Nightwish (Tuomas Holopainen)

I must say this guys lyrics are brilliant, the last part of the song, when the music stops and get bombarded with philosophical ideas is just so good

"Death is the winner in any war
Nothing noble in dying for your religion
For your country
For ideology, for faith
For another man, yes
Paper is dead without words
Ink idle without a poem
All the world dead without stories
Without love and disarming beauty
Careless realism costs souls
Ever seen the Lord smile?
All the care for the world made Beautiful a sad man?
Why do we still carry a device of torture around our necks?
Oh, how rotten your pre-apocalypse is
All you bible-black fools living over nightmare ground
I see all those empty cradles and wonder
If man will ever change
I, too, wish to be a decent manboy but all I am
Is smoke and mirrors
Still given everything, may I be deserving
And there forever remains that change from G to Em"

12 Ode to the Sun - Obscura (Steffen Kummerer)

What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
To whom our vows and wishes bend
Here our solemn search has end
Mother of a hundred gods
Divine creation give her odds
Who had thought this clime had held
A deity, numinous and unparalleled
This this is she - Sitting like a Goddess bright
This this is she - In the center of her light
Mark what radiant state she spreads
In circle round her shining throne
Scatter radiance like silver shreds
This this is she
To the celestial sirens harmony
And turn the adamantine spindle round
On which the fate of gods and men is wound
This this is she
Fame that her high worth to raise
Once seemed so lavish and profuse
We may justly now accuse
Of detraction from her praise

This this is she

13 Stargazer - Rainbow (Dio)
14 Ghost of Perdition - Opeth (Mikael Akerfeldt)

Opeth's music are rich in lyricism and amazing execution.

15 A Change of Seasons - Dream Theater (Mike Portnoy)
16 Symbolic - Death (Chuck Schuldiner)
17 Ghost Love Score - Nightwish (Tuomas Holopainen)
18 Starchild - Wintersun (Jari Mäenpää)
19 Welcome Home (Sanitarium) - Metallica (James Hetfield)
20 Stranger in a Strange Land - Iron Maiden (Adrian Smith)
21 Empire of the Clouds - Iron Maiden (Bruce Dickinson)
22 My Last Sunrise - Demons & Wizards (Hansi Kürsch)

The lamb, the rose.
They don't exist!
The lamb, the rose.
They don't exist!

These are my last words, I need to rest.
In fear and anger I'll lay down my head.
A faithless spirit in a broken man.

Everything is burning.
Rotten flesh keeps burning.
It's my last sunrise in fear.

The grail's in pieces, all the bliss is gone.
The rose has dried out and the lamb got slaughtered long ago.
The hope became another lie like the non-existing father god.
I'll close my eyes, goodbye.

Don't wait for me on the other side.

Everything is burning.
Rotten flesh keeps burning.
It's my last sunrise in fear.
Don't wait for me on the other side.

Golgotha had seen nothing else but a carpenter's death.
Golgotha, not more maybe not even that.

Suffer, grief and pain have driven me insane.

Can't you see, there's nothing real but you and I.
I say goodbye.

Hear no evil, speak no evil.
See no evil, feel no ...more

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