"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was first released on the group's second album, Ride the Lightning. In 1985, Elektra Records released it as a promotional single, with both an edited and full-length versions. The song is generally regarded as one of their most popular; by March 2018, it ranked number five on Metallica's live performance count. Several live albums and video albums include the song.
Composition
The song was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel of the same name about the process of death in modern warfare and the bloody Spanish Civil War. Specific allusions are made to the scene described in Chapter 27 of the book, in which five soldiers are obliterated during an airstrike after taking a defensive position on a hill. Cliff Burton plays the bass guitar introduction, which is often mistaken for an electric guitar, with heavy distortion and a wah pedal. Burton wrote the intro before joining Metallica and first played it during a 12-minute jam at a battle of the bands with his second band Agents of Misfortune in 1979.
Track listing
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was released as a promo single with two versions of the song. An edited version appears on the A-side, with the full-length album version on the B-side.
Other versions
Metallica In 1999, Metallica recorded "For Whom the Bell Tolls" with the San Francisco Symphony, which featured again in their S&M 2 concert in 2019. It is included on the live albumS&M. Other live versions appear on Cliff 'Em All, ', Cunning Stunts, Français Pour une Nuit, ', ', Quebec Magnetic, and '. Mixes
A remix by DJ Spooky appeared on the Spawn soundtrack, titled "For Whom the Bell Tolls ". Metallica later released it on "The Memory Remains" single re-titled "For Whom the Bell Tolls ". Despite the different names and song lengths, the two are the same.
Covers
Finnish cello group Apocalyptica covered the song for their 1998 album Inquisition Symphony.
