The Metallica guitarist’s reading features ‘Inamorata’, pairing Poe’s Gothic classic with the band’s own exploration of misery.
Kirk Hammett has recorded a Halloween reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’. Released through Metallica’s official YouTube channel, the video pairs the guitarist’s narration with the band’s ‘Inamorata’.
Filmed and edited by Brett Murray, the clip presents an excerpt from Poe’s 1845 poem. The selected passage covers its final seven stanzas, following the grieving narrator’s increasingly desperate questions about his lost Lenore through to the raven’s enduring shadow.
That gives the soundtrack a connection beyond atmosphere. In a 2023 interview with Metallica’s So What! magazine, James Hetfield described ‘Inamorata’ through the phrase “misery as my mistress”. He explained that misery served a purpose in his life, but he was tired of letting it run his life.
Read alongside Poe, the song offers a parallel between two narrators struggling with pain they cannot easily escape. Where Hetfield describes wanting to break that attachment, Poe leaves his narrator beneath the raven’s shadow.
For Hammett, the reading also draws on a longstanding interest in horror. His collection of film posters, artwork and memorabilia has reached museum walls, including the Columbia Museum of Art’s 2020 presentation of It’s Alive! Classic Horror And Sci-Fi Art From The Kirk Hammett Collection.
Organised by the Peabody Essex Museum, that exhibition featured more than 100 pieces of graphic art. The Poe reading brings his fascination into another form, with Hammett supplying the voice and Metallica providing the soundtrack.
Watch Kirk Hammett’s reading of ‘The Raven’ below.
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