Riff of the Day: ...And Justice for All (Metallica)

Since I made this the Song of the Day, I might as well put up one of the riffs that always used to give me picking trouble. Nineteen years ago (when I was a Metallica virgin), I couldn't hack it with Hetfield's chunky down-stroke picking on the pre-chorus ("The ultimate in vanity / exploiting their supremacy..."):


___F#__________________G_F#__E___(F#)G_______(F#)G
___q___e_e_e_e_e____|__e\e___e____e==q________q
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|o------------------|------------------------------o|
|o-4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5-o|
|--4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5--|
|--2---2-2-2-2-2-2--|-------------------------------|
_______*_*_*_*_*_*


Had to put underscores in to keep Blogger from screwing up the formatting.

To play it cleanly, you need to be able to play the palm-muted (*) notes at speed, all down-strokes at 160 beats per minute.

My copy of the guitar/TAB "...And Justice for All" book has the riff written this way:

___F#__________________G_F#__E___(F#)G_______(F#)G
___q___e_e_e_e_e____|__e\e___e____e==q________q
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|o------------------|------------------------------o|
|o-4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5-o|
|--4---4-4-4-4-4-4--|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5--|
|--2---2-2-2-2-2-2--|--3\2---0---(2)/3-------(2)/3--|
_______*_*_*_*_*_*


...and it works both ways; I've just always left the root notes off.

Definitely a "wooohoo!!!" moment--after 22 years of not being able to play fast, it seems like something just clicked into place, like maybe wrist position or some other bit of picking technique that I suddenly got right after all this time.

Still a long way to go before I'm up to the ending of "One" or any of "Damage, Inc.," but now there's some incentive to work a little harder on it.