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"The Thing That Should Not Be"
Cover of Master of Puppets
Song by Metallica
from the album Master of Puppets
Released	February 21, 1986
Recorded	Sweet Silence Studios Copenhagen, Denmark September-December, 1985
Genre	Thrash metal
Length	6:37
Label	Elektra Records
Producer(s)	Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
Master of Puppets track listing
"Battery" "Master of Puppets" "The Thing That Should Not Be" "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" "Disposable Heroes" "Leper Messiah" "Orion" "Damage, Inc."

"The Thing That Should Not Be" is the third song from Metallica's 1986 album Master Of Puppets. It was composed by Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. It is the first Metallica song written in an alternate guitar tuning; the fourth and the sixth strings are tuned down one step.

The song, like "The Call of Ktulu", was inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", on which the lyrics of "The Thing That Should Not Be" are predominantly based. Otherwise, the song borrows heavily from the general Cthulhu Mythos lore, including references to (Cthulhu) beneath the sea, the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep, and an adaptation of the mad Arab's couplet from the fictional Necronomicon ("Not dead which eternal lie/Stranger eons death may die").

"The Thing That Should Not Be" fits in with the theme of the album by having the person whom this song is about becoming one of "The Things That Should Not Be".

• This song was covered by the band The Sins of Thy Beloved for their Perpetual Desolation album.
• This song was covered by the band Mendeed for Kerrang!'s Master of Puppets: Remastered.
• This song was covered by the band Primus for their Rhinoplasty album.
• This song was mixed with a Beatles song by Beatallica and named "The Thing That Should Not Let It Be".
• This song was covered live by the band Deadsy.
• This song is the fifth song of Disc One on Metallica's live album S&M with the San Francisco Symphony. For an unknown reason, it has a stanza of the lyrics removed.
• This song was covered by the heavy/thrash metal band Diesel Machine, and was included in their album "Torture Test".
• This song was covered by John Garcia, Kurdt Vanderhoof, Jeff Pilson, and Jason Bonham for Metallic Assault: A Tribute to Metallica.
• Adema covered the song as a hidden track on their third album Planets, and released it on the album's first single: "Tornado".