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"Master of Puppets"
Single by Metallica from the album Master of Puppets
Released	1986
Recorded	Sweet Silence Studios Copenhagen, Denmark September-December, 1985
Genre	Thrash metal
Length	8:37
Label	Elektra Records
Writer	Kirk Hammett James Hetfield Cliff Burton Lars Ulrich
Producer	Metallica Flemming Rasmussen
Metallica singles chronology
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1985) "Master of Puppets" (1986) "Battery" (1986)
Music sample
"Master of Puppets" Problems? See media help.

"Master of Puppets" is a well known song by heavy metal band Metallica. It is the title track of their 1986 album.

It is also following the tradition of Ride the Lightning in having the title track as the second track, preceded by a shorter, high-speed typical thrash metal track. There are several such track similarities on Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice for All. "Master of Puppets" is also notable for its long and complex instrumental section beginning about three and a half minutes into the song. The song, as Lars Ulrich explained, is about being controlled by some kind of manipulative force relentlessly.

The song features a chromatic introduction riff and a change into a Spanish phrygian interlude. Before the second solo of the song, bassist Cliff Burton, can be vaguely heard in the background reciting the verse, in a deep gruff voice.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• During the recording of the main guitar solo, Kirk Hammett pulled the E string off of the fret board while hitting the whammy bar, making a high pitched sound. Because the band thought it "sounded cool", they left it in. Hammett says he could never figure out exactly what he did, so he often played an artificial harmonic to substitute when playing the song live.
• The song has been ranked as the 3rd greatest heavy metal song ever by VH1.^[1] In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 22 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
• The song was ranked #1 in Martin Popoff book The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time. Popoff put together this book by requesting thousands of metal fans, musicians, and journalists to send in their favorite heavy metal songs. Almost 18,000 individual votes were tallied and entered into a database from which the final rankings were derived.^[2].
• The song was said to be bassist Cliff Burton's favourite Metallica song.^[3]
• The conservative talk show host Michael Savage uses this track as the opening of his radio show, The Savage Nation.
• Primus has been known to play the opening of the song as a "tease" where Les Claypool, bass player and lead vocalist, plays the guitar part on his bass. The most notable performance of this "tease" was at Woodstock 94.
• It was covered live at least once by progressive metal band Dream Theater.
• Finnish band Apocalyptica released a cover of the song played only by cellos.
• The song was also featured in the movie "Old School".
• This song is the theme song for the San Francisco Giants' third baseman, Pedro Feliz.
• This song was featured in the Simpsons episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" when Hans Moleman drives away as Metallica is playing.
• German punk band Die Ärzte samples it in the middle of their song "FaFaFa".
• This song came first in a recent '100 Greatest Riffs' poll from Total Guitar.
• This song has a guitar riff near the end similar to David Bowie's "Andy Warhol".
• Anthrax sampled this song in their "I'm the Man"
• Roger Beam, a bassist from Boise, ID, created a slap-bass shortened version of the song and has recently surpassed 56,000 hits on google.
• As a tribute to Metallica, Underground New York rapper Necro recites the pre-chorus in his song "Underground" off his album "I need drugs".
• Bobby Prince made an IMF version of the song for the popular computer game Doom by id Software.
• Limp Bizkit has covered it live, with Wes Borland singing instead.
• Trivium have also recorded a cover of this track which was released on Master of Puppets: Remastered and the re-release of Ascendancy. They also regularly perform some of this song live.

1. ^ "VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs", 1-4 May 2006, VH1 Channel, reported by; last accessed September 10, 2006.
2. ^ "The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time".
3. ^ Cliff Burton R.I.P. Interview. Retrieved 2007-03-07

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