For Whom The Bell Tolls (Metallica Song)

For Whom The Bell Tolls (Metallica Song)

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a song by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as a promo only single from their second album, Ride the Lightning. Among their most-played songs, it has, as of October 17, 2012, been played 1,253 times, behind only One (1,273), Seek & Destroy (1,343), Creeping Death (1,367) and Master of Puppets (1,416).

The song was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel of the same name about the dishonor of modern warfare and the protagonist's eminent 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, futurely, 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. Creeping Death is played on the same tuning.