How deep are the philosophical waters when it comes to Motörhead's "Metropolis?"

Is there much to be made philosophically from the Motörhead tune “Metropolis?”  Well perhaps not if you take the song writer’s word for it.

“I went to the movies one night and saw Metropolis, the old Fritz Lang movie, and went home and wrote that complete nonsense lyric,” explained Lemmy.  “‘Metroplolis is something new / Ain’t nobody got their eye on you / I don’t care.’ What the fuck does that mean?  But it’s a great song.” Lemmy told Freddy Villano in his final interview for Bass Player.

“This track is a complete mystery,” Lemmy wrote for the linear notes to No Remorse.  “I wrote (the lyric) in approximately two minutes after seeing the film of the same name in Portobello Electric Cinema.  Eddie wrote the riff 9/10.”  That’s the story of “Metropolis,” the song, but there’s more to it than meets the eye, surely.

Let’s look at the Fritz Lang film, then return to Lemmy’s complete lyric and see what we can’t find.  

The film Metropolis was shot in 1926, so in just 10 years we’ll be able to see just how closely the future measures up to Fritz Lang’s dystopian images.  In the movie society has been divided into two rigid groups, one of city planners (thinkers) and the other of underground workers, bringing to mind a situation much like the one in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine with the Eloi and the Morlocks, but I digress.

The city leader is Johnann “Jon” Fredersen, played by Aldred Abel.  Maria, played by the evangelic appearing Brigette Helm, champions the cause of the workers.  Though the workers are desperate for action to gain relief from their all-work no play situation, Maria advises them to wait until the appearance of a mediator, someone who will act as liason between the workers and the city dwellers and unite the two halves of the society.

New on the scene is the son of Jon Fredersen, Freder played by Gustav Frohlich.  There are a couple of things happening with his charachter.  First off, he quickly becomes infatuated with Maria and follows her down into the city’s underworld, where he becomes furious upon seeing the living conditions and the working conditions to which the under-dwellers are subjected.  He is witness to an explosion at the “M-Machine.”  New workers are brought in to attend the machine, even before the dead and injured are cleared.  Freder is infuriated.  Of course, he joins Maria’s cause.  Maria has prophesied the coming of one who can unite the workers and the those living in the city above and he believes he can be that man.

Meanwhile, the city father, who happens to be Freder’s father as well, pays a secret visit to the scientist Rotwag (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), both an old companion AND rival.  It turns out there were secret plans and speeches that Maria had given among papers found on the bodies of the workers killed and injured by the blast at the “M-Machine.”  This sets an evil plan in motion.  They wish to discredit Maria.

Rotwag has constructed a gynoid robot.  They will give the robot Maria's likeness and they then kidnap Maria and replace her with the gynoid, who sets to ruin her reputation, driving men to dissent and even murder among the workers.  Freder, meanwhile, has fallen into a delerium, and there are intercut scenes of hallucinations.  He recovers and returns to discover the false Maria directing the workers to rise up and destroy the machines.  He accuses her of being false.  The workers ignore his plea, leave thier children behind, and go forth and destroy the Heart Machine, flooding the underworld in the process.

In the meantime, Maria has been able to escape, and with the aide of Freder, has rescued the children from the flood.  The foreman Grot unleashes fury upon the workers for what they have done.  Believing their children dead, they seize the false Maria and burn her at the stake.

A horrified Freder looks on, not comprehending until the flames finally reveal the robot.  Rotwag chases the real Maria to a rooftop, pursued by Freder, where the scientist eventually falls to his death.  Freder, joins the hands of his father and foreman Grot, fulfilling his role as mediator.  The End.

Now, Lemmy's lyrics.

Metropolis, the worlds collide,
Ain't nobody could be on your side,
I don't care, I don't care,

Metropolis is something new,
Aint nobody got thier eye on you,
I don't care, I don't care,

Metropolis, the worlds collide,
Ain't nobody on the other side,
I don't care, I'm not there.

The song is a mystery, but a quick study is easy.  Indeed we have two world's colliding, one of leisure and one of toil.  "Ain't nobody could be on your side" isn't too difficult to puzzle out.  I think Lemmy took an every man for himself, or every worker for him or herself mentality to this film.  Much is known about Lemmy's philosophy in life and what a lot of it boiled down to was kind of a lassie faire attitide towards everyone else, live and let live.  So no, nobody could be on your side.  And no, Lemmy probably didn't care one iota.

Metropolis was something new.  When Fritz Lang first saw the skyscrapers of New York he knew he had to create a cinematic work featuring towering spryres such as these, saying "The buildings seemed to be a vertical veil, very light and scintillating, a luxirious backdrop suspended from the gray sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize.  At night the city gave only the impression of living; it lived as illusions do.  I knew I must make a film of all these impressions."

The next line I think means neither side knows what is going on in the class struggle in the film.  The lower class is oblivious to the plot to discredit Maria and certainly the upper class, while they may know that Maria intends to attempt to unite the workers with those living in the city, they are not sure just what violence the workers are truly capable of executing.  And still, Lemmy doesn't care.

Verse three the worlds do collide and by the film's conclusion there is no longer a need for "sides," and still Lemmy doesn't care, and he isn't there.  I get the impression Lemmy wasn't overtly moved by this film.  Perhaps going in he knew it was this important piece of German cinema and we all know he had thought the Germans had an eye for a lot of things stylitically, but maybe he wasn't as moved as much as he had hoped he would be, but still felt that it deserved a tune.

Hell, that's my excuse anyway.  The film Metropolis is an important piece of cinema and the song "Metropolis" kicks ass.  I at least want the song to have some thought put into it, even if its only on the listeners' back end.  My two cents.