Metallica: Ride The Lightning - Ranking Every Song Worst To Best

2. For Whom The Bell Tolls

Named for, and based on in part, the Ernest Hemmingway novel of the same name, this stridently bruising promotional single remains a live staple of the band for good reason; it's one of their best songs, full-stop, a five-minute slice of ominously prowling heavy metal mastery whose strident groove grabs the listener firmly by the braces.

Its distinctive intro is not in fact a guitar lick but instead a bass riff played with a wah-wah pedal under some serious distortion by Burton, a melody that had its roots in the musician's pre-Metallica career. It's the record's best marriage of bone-crushing heaviness with a serious melodic heartbeat threaded through it.

It's one of five songs the group has played more than one-and-a-half-thousand times in concert, and only one of two such cuts from Ride the Lightning, alongside Creeping Death. For a slightly different flavour, its orchestral amplification on the S&M record gives it an extra majestic sweep - not that it particularly needed any more.

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Something of a culture vulture, Mr Steel can historically be found in three places; the local cinema, the local stadium or the local chip shop. He is an avowed fan of franchise films, amateur cricket and power-chords.