Master of Puppets (song)

It is the second and title track of the album, preceded by a shorter, high-speed typical thrash metal track, "Battery", a similar sequencing heard on Metallica's second (Ride the Lightning) and fourth (...And Justice for All) albums. "Master of Puppets" is also notable for its extensive use of downpicking and long instrumental section.^[4]

According to Dave Mustaine, Lars Ulrich composed the song's opening riff while Mustaine was still a member of Metallica.^[5]

A riff from David Bowie's song "Andy Warhol" is quoted in "Master of Puppets". It is a homage made by Cliff Burton and Kirk Hammett to whom Bowie was a huge influence.^[6]

The song was recorded in a lower tempo and tuning and later sped up by Rasmussen running the tapes faster which brought the tuning up to standard 440 Hz. This allowed the instruments to be as tight as possible at a higher tempo. Ulrich later admitted he feels the album version is "too tight".^[7]

The song, as lead singer James Hetfield explained, "deals pretty much with drugs. How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you're taking and doing, it's drugs controlling you."^[8]

The videos Cliff 'Em All, S&M, and S&M2 include live performances of "Master of Puppets" in its entirety. A shortened form appears in Cunning Stunts. Both versions can be seen in the video portions of the Live Shit: Binge & Purge box set.

"Master of Puppets" is the band's most played song live, first played on December 31, 1985, at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for a crowd of 7,000.^[9] During the band's World Magnetic Tour, additional live performances were filmed in Mexico City; Nîmes, France and Sofia, Bulgaria. These performances were released on video in November 2009 (Mexico and Nîmes) and October 2010 (Sofia).

VH1 ranked the song as the third greatest heavy metal song ever.^[10]

In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 22 in its 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks list.^[11]

Martin Popoff's 2003 book The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs of All Time ranked the song at number 2. Popoff composed the book by requesting that metal fans, musicians, and journalists nominate their favorite heavy metal songs. The author derived the final rankings from a database tallying almost 18,000 votes.^[12]

In 2020, Metal Hammer ranked the song number 1 on its list of the 50 best Metallica songs of all time.^[13]

In 2021, it was listed at No. 256 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time,"^[14] and in 2023 was ranked at number 2 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time" list.^[15]

"Master of Puppets" is featured in a scene of the 2003 film Old School and is heard as actors Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell play characters who are busy kidnapping people off the street to join their new fraternity.^[22] The song was featured in the opening credits for the film Zombieland: Double Tap.^[23] The song also appears in a trailer for the game Marvel's Midnight Suns.^[24]

The song is featured in the fourth season finale of the Netflix series Stranger Things, where the character Eddie Munson is seen playing the track in the Upside Down to attract the Demobats. The band said they were "blown away" by the scene.^[25] As happened with Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", which was also featured in the season, the song regained popularity and started charting again following the release of the finale, notably entering the U.S. and UK charts for the first time since the song's original 1986 release. It then peaked at number four in the Netherlands.^[26]

Credits are adapted from Master of Puppets's liner notes.^[27]

• Songs about substance abuse