We apologize for the incovenience, but we've been unable to interview Metallica for questioning regarding the song The Shortest Straw's meaning at this time.
Along with other seemingly anti-political songs on this album, this song was played heavily during tours for ...And Justice For All.
Near the end of the first leg of the ...And Justice For All tour, the sound technicians cut power before a show, disabling the monitor systems and cutting off the vocal and drum microphones and guitar/bass amplifiers.
Kevin: "Someone *points to Knuckles* didn't tell us the sound guys we had during that tour were in Sound Engineer Locale 210. So we fired their asses. Hey, I look at it like this: We pay them to do a job. If they refuse to do their job, someone else will, and you get to meet my friend, the little pink slip. We figured out how to turn the sound back on once they left, so the show could go on. It only took us 48 hours to hire a new sound staff, from guys who didn't want to be with us in the early days, to people who had gotten fired from other bands' crew.
"So a few days later, guess what? We went into The Shortest Straw, and during the pre-chorus, they cut us off again. So we were up there playing without any juice, Knux's drums were louder than everybody else, and the fans just took over for the vocals whenever I stepped up to my shell of a microphone. I thought they could still hear us, and it was just the monitors, but later I found out everything was out. We finished the song, unplugged, and then the sound came back on. They grabbed the mic and said that they were calling for a Metallica Boycott. And I'm going, 'Who the fuck do these guys think they are? We aren't the goddamn Beatles!' And you'da thought they could have thougt up something more original, that they haven't used before."