I went to guitar class a few weeks ago and the song we were learning that day
was night moves by bob seger. Whenever i think of bob seger the song turn the
page comes to my mind and i’ve always loved metallica’s cover of the song.
In fact, I actually prefer their version to the original and i never understood why
they never used their version of the song on guitar hero metallica. But that’s a discussion
for another time. Today I wanted to talk about how the band came to record the song, how the
video ended up starring adult actress ginger lynn and how it resulted in some controversy.
By the mid to late 90’s Metallica was on a creative streak releasing 4 albums in four years
with 1996’s Load, the following year’s Reload, 1998 Garage inc and 1999’s S&M. Garage Inc was a
release that consisted of covers and saw the band pay homage to their influences. One of the songs
on the album and the lead single from the release was a cover of the bob seger song turn the page.
The single Turn the Page would reach number 1 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks
chart for 11 consecutive weeks,and it would be the highest number of
weeks Metallica has ever spent at the top; I don’t know about where you guys live but if im
listening to local rock radio that’s one of maybe six metallica songs i hear on constant rotation.
Bob Seger had written the song back in the 70's about loneliness and the hardships of being a
traveling musician. It would be Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s who came up with the idea for the
band to cover the song claiming in an interview he heard the bob seger version when he was driving in
san francisco across the golden gate bridge and recalled it and i quote "had James Hetfield all
over it. Guitarist Kirk Hammett would talk about covering the song during a promotional interview
for Garage Inc saying a very odd choice; I'm not a big Bob Seger fan. But "Turn the Page"
is a great song about being on the road. It's kind of ballady, but when you hear it you can
really picture James singing it" he'd say. Seger for his part sometimes had trouble
with musicians covering his material in his career admitting in an interview “It seems
like the only people who do my stuff are these really off-the-wall cats looking for really
off-the-wall stuff,” But turn the page for it's part had been covered by an australian singer
named jon english who actually won several awards for his performance of the song.
While Seger’s song would tell the story of life on the road as a touring musician,
the band for their music video would shine a light on the hard life of single mothers who
have to make ends meet and provide for their children by being sex workers or stripping.
The video would see shots of the band performing the song while starring adult
actress Ginger Lynn who portrays a single mother living in a motel with her daughter.
By this point in her career she was still acting in adult filmls but branching out
into more mainstream roles appearing in films and television. Lynn would tell popgeeks.com that she
turned down the offer to appear in the video several times over the course of three months.
She would admit to the reason for her turning down the role claiming that she thought it would
be denegrating and involve her bouncing around naked in the video. On top of that turn the page
was one of her favourite bob seger songs so she had some reservations about the band would not
properly pay homage to it. But she eventually agreed to meet with director Jonas Akerland
recalling how she changed her mind about the role after meeting him,
but there was one problem. She would tell popgeek I went in and I sat down with the director,
and he told me a story that just, it touched me so deeply..I wanted that role more than anything
I’d ever wanted. I got the phone call the next day from the casting director. Now, remember,
they’d been trying to get me for three months to do this role, and the casting director said to me,
“Well, Jonas absolutely loves you, but you’re too thin and you look too good”. In order to get the
role Lynn would gain 10-15 pounds. She would add in the same interview If I had to say there was
something that I’m the most proud of that I’ve done in my mainstream career, I’m going to put
“Turn The Page” right up there. According to Lynn in the same interview Jonas made the video
into a short film and entered it into some film festivals where it would take home several awards.
As for the music video itself it ruffled a few feathers. The director of the video
"Jonas Akerland had previously directed the prodigy’s video Smack My Expletive Up but
Due to the fistfight, sexual scenes and allegedly misogynistic language in the lyrics, the song was
removed from mtv after a few several weeks. If you guys didn't know, Akerland used to run a circus
back home in sweden and play as the drummer in a swedish death metal act before coming to America.
The video for Turn the Page would see Lynn playing a single mother who strips during the day and
works as a sex worker during the night only to meet a john who assaults her with her daughter
in the next room. Both the prodigy video and turn the page drew criticism from women’s rights groups
and Acklerand would tell mtv in 1998 "Sometimes when I hear stuff about it, I realize the people
that say stuff haven't even seen it. The director would come up with the idea for
Turn the Page’s video drawing from his own life experiences and looking at the lyrics,
While at first glance you may not see the similarities, Ackerland is a single parent
telling mtv "She has the same kind of problems that a lot of people have everyday, but she's
into something else," "I am a single father and I do work a lot and I should be more with my kid
and I'm struggling in life like a lot of people do. I'm not planning on hooking and stripping,
but I do other stuff. We all have our different problems. While women’s right’s groups cried
afoul at the video the director would claim the video’s message was getting lost telling mtv.
"I hate violence. I'm against violence. But sometimes when you have an idea, to make that idea
really strong, you need to go all the way,. "If I have that kind of idea I have to go all the way."
A week after the video premiered on mtv in november of 1998 the network reached out to
the band’s publicist Joel Amsterdam, but the band declined to comment but did release a
statement on why they covered the track saying "They liked the song because of the road-dog
aspect of it, talking about that life and what that's like and to experience that kind of
loneliness," "They used the video as a metaphor for loneliness in general and the kind of toll
that takes on people's lives. Any information on what the band was thinking and what the director
was thinking has to come from them" they'd say. The band’s fans seemed to get the video’s message
though with MTV publishing a letter that a 16 year old fan named Justin Thompson wrote in saying
"I think the band was just trying to make people realize that people are just trying to get by
however they can and that prostitutes/strippers don't really like what they do, but it's the only
way to survive,". "So I think they just chose it to symbolize all the people who
are just trying to make it through the day." The network would also highlight a woman
named Fatima Jaffer, who worked as an information coordinator for the Vancouver,
British Columbia-based Women's Support Center, who cricitized the band saying
"I don't think Metallica is all that qualified to make deep comments about women.
To do so without context, it's easy to be misread, "I myself prefer them to stay away
from subjects like this that can do a lot of damage, and leave it to organizations like us.
Basically profiting from music that's on this topic is something I stand totally opposed to."
The network would even interviewed a lawyer named David Levy who represented a group named
Children’s Right Council in Washington DC who was upset with the daughter being left alone in a
motel room while her mother works at night saying "I'd say Metallica should be prosecuted under
child endangerment laws….because kids are watching that at home on MTV,"
Mtv would report that a week after the video aired they hadn’t received any viewer complaints about
the video itself from viewers and i couldn’t find any evidence it was banned. So how did bob
seger feel about the band covering his song? Well here’s what he had to say I loved it
yeah yeah. They told me they were going to do it and I loved it. You know i really like the drum
especially because our drums are really simple and a whole lot more cool take on it. It's been
done before yeah it won a grammy in australia another guy did it in australia and won a grammy.
That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.