In 2008, Metallica released the third part of the “The Unforgiven” trilogy of songs as part of the “Death Magnetic” album. Many people thought that the song series would have come to an end with the third part, but it seems that there might be more to come.
The band’s singer-guitarist James Hetfield answered a fan’s question on the subject in a recent episode of The Metallica Report podcast.
I’m not dead! I’m not dead yet, so it’s not finished. I don’t know if we’re going to have ‘Unforgiven XII’ or not. I don’t know. If I say I know then it’ll be different. ‘Unforgiven III’ is obviously about self-forgiveness and I didn’t have any of that, especially in the first one. ‘II’ was kind of the middle ground. ‘Unforgiven III’ [was about] ‘How can I forgive you if I can’t forgive myself?’ That is kind of the wrap-up to that, but there could be more. I don’t know.