For Whom the Bell Tolls (song)

This article covers the song For Whom the Bell Tolls . For the novel of the same name, see Whom the Hour Strikes .

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Metallica
publication	July 30, 1984
length	5:10
Genre (s)	Thrash metal
Author (s)	James Hetfield , Lars Ulrich , Cliff Burton
album	Ride the Lightning

For Whom the Bell Tolls (German "Whom the hour strikes") is a song by the US metal band Metallica . It is the third song on the1984album Ride the Lightning . The song was written by James Hetfield , Lars Ulrich and Cliff Burton .

The chromatic intro, which often for a guitar riff is held, was in truth Burton using distortion - and wah-wah - effects played. He wrote it before joining Metallica and presented it at a “Battle of the Bands” with his first band Agent of Misfortune, which also included guitarist Jim Martin from Faith No More . In 1996, the band was nominated for this song for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance , which was then won by Nine Inch Nails .

background

For Whom the Bell Tolls belongs to the Thrash Metal genre and therefore fits into the overall picture of Ride the Lightning . Like all other songs on the album , the song was recorded in the Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen , Denmark, with the support of the Elektra Records label . As composers, Cliff Burton , James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are to be mentioned, as producers Flemming Rasmussen , Mark Whitaker and Metallica himself. Kirk Hammett's outro guitar solo has been mixed relatively strongly into the background in this piece and is therefore difficult to hear.

content

The resolution's content by theme For Whom the Bell Tolls an episode from the book For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway in which the guerrilla leader El Sordo is surrounded on a hill and dies together with five companions in an air raid.

Cover versions and other references to the song

• Metallica reissued with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michael Kamen , released on the live album S&M .
• Trivium covered the song while it was being written.
• Sum 41 combined some Metallica songs and played the result for Metallica's 20th anniversary on MTV . They also played it, along with many other Metallica pieces, as part of a Metallica cover show in Hoodwink near London in 2009 with their new lead guitarist Tom Thacker.
• Apocalyptica played For Whom the Bell Tolls like many other Metallica songs with four cellos . This version was released on the album Inquisition Symphony (1998).
• Moonsorrow played the song on their EP Tulimyrsky (2008). A 7:43 minute version can be found there.
• Artillery covered the song, but it was never released.
• The Excrementory Grindfuckers parodied the song on their album Ready, Scene Cleaning! (2004) under the title For Whom the Shit Rolls . In this instrumental version, recorders were used instead of guitars .
• In the song Mope by The Bloodhound Gang from 2000, the chorus features the intro of For Whom the Bell Tolls .
• Blue Öyster Cult played a tribute cover for Metallica with Megadeth .
• Sunn O))) wrote a cover version of the song in their own Drone Doom style, which they called FWTBT (I Dream of Lars Ulrich Being Thrown Through the Bus Window Instead of My Mystikal Master Kliff Burton) , the song is on their album Flight of the Behemoth .

Live implementation

The live versions of For Whom the Bell Tolls are characterized by always varying and very pronounced bass solos , which are played before the intro. Usually the bass intro is also decorated by tapping and bending. Furthermore, there is usually a direct transition from the outro to the following piece, introduced by a solo by Kirk Hammett .

Trivia

The song was used for the intro of the 2009 film Zombieland .

See also

• Metallica discography

Web links

• Lyrics and translation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ride the Lightning at metallica.com ( Memento from November 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Videos on YouTube.com prove Martin's membership of the band.
3. ↑ For whom the hour strikes - Ernest Hemingway : Chapter
4. ↑ official lyrics ( memento from May 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ S&M? Sadomasochi Should hearing be painful in advance? In: laut.de. Retrieved May 9, 2020 . 
6. ^ MTV Icon: Metallica. In: imdb.com. Retrieved May 9, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Apocalyptica - For Whom The Bell Tolls - hitparade.ch. In: hitparade.ch. Retrieved May 9, 2020 .