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For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica song)

"For Whom the Bell Tolls"
Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls cover.jpg
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" cover
Promotional single by Metallica from the album Ride the Lightning
Released August 31, 1985
Format LP
Recorded February 20 - March 14, 1984 at Sweet Silence Studios Copenhagen, Denmark
Genre Thrash metal
Length 5:10
Label Elektra
Writer(s) James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton
Producer(s) Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
Ride the Lightning track listing
"Ride the Lightning"
(2)
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"
(3)
"Fade to Black"
(4)
Music sample

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a song by American thrash metal band Metallica. It was released as the second promotional single from their second album, Ride the Lightning. Among their most-played songs, it has, as of November 16, 2014, been performed 1,305 times, behind only "One" (1,324), "Seek & Destroy" (1,396), "Creeping Death" (1,413) and "Master of Puppets" (1,467).

The song was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel of the same name about the dishonor of modern warfare and the protagonist's imminent doom during the bloody Spanish Civil War. Specific allusions are made to the scene in which five soldiers are obliterated during an air-strike, after taking a position on a hill.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was released as a promo single with two versions of the song, an edited version on side A and the album version on the b-side.

The chromatic introduction, which is often mistaken for an electric guitar, is in fact Cliff Burton playing his bass guitar through distortion and wah-wah. The intro was written by Burton before joining Metallica. Burton first played it in 1979 in a 12-minute jam at a battle of the bands with his second band Agents of Misfortune (with his old bandmate from EZ-Street and future Faith No More guitarist "Big" Jim Martin).

The guitars and bass in the song are tuned slightly sharper than standard on this performance (and sharper than the other tracks on the album). Rumors and speculation abound regarding the reason for the discrepancy, but no definitive explanation has surfaced - one reasoning is the slightly sharpened guitar tuning is used to keep the guitars in line with the song's intro bell chimes.


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