In a new interview, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has pinpointed the Deep Purple epic “Child In Time” as the song that fundamentally shaped his understanding of music, explaining that it was his “first time” being exposed to the idea that a song could “live and breathe” differently each time it was played.
Speaking on the “Music And We” podcast, Ulrich recalled the very beginning of his musical journey, which famously began with a Deep Purple concert in 1973.
“I’ve told the story many, many times about my dad taking me to see Deep Purple in Copenhagen [Denmark] in 1973. And that began the musical journey,” Ulrich said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). He explained that while he was listening to a lot of British pop rock at the time, the song “Child In Time,” which he first heard on the legendary live album Made In Japan, was something different.
“That song, it sort of had an epic feel and a different kind of feel than some of the other songs, and had these dynamics and felt more like a journey,” he explained. “That was a sort of an experience that kept evolving as you were listening to it.”
The real revelation for the young Ulrich, however, came later when he was able to hear multiple versions of the song from the same tour. He learned that, unlike a standard three-minute pop song, “every time they played this song, it was different.”
He detailed how the expanded reissue of Made In Japan, which contained three full concerts from consecutive nights, opened his eyes to the art of improvisation.
“They’re completely different in length, they’re completely different in their sort of dynamics and it’s completely just mood based,” he said of the three versions of the song. “What sort of mood are they in? What mood is particularly [then-Deep Purple guitarist] Ritchie Blackmore in as he’s taking the solo and all that?”
This discovery, he explained, was a pivotal moment in his musical education, connecting the dots between rock and the freeform nature of jazz.
“Deep Purple‘s ‘Child In Time‘ was the first time I was exposed to music that lived and breathed depending on what mood the players were in. And that has left a mark on me,” Ulrich stated. He lamented that this kind of in-the-moment creativity is something he finds is “rare and rare” in today’s music world, happening “less and less.”
