"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a song by Metallica, the third track from their second album Ride the Lightning. The song was composed by Cliff Burton, James Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich. The chromatic introduction (which is usually mistaken for an electric guitar) is in fact Cliff Burton playing his bass guitar through distortion and wah-wah. The intro was written by Burton before joining Metallica. Burton plays it in a 12-minute jam at a battle of the bands with his first band "Agent of Misfortune." After the introduction, the bass settles into a steady triplet rhythm. The guitars in the song sound slightly sharper than a standard-tuned guitar should sound. However, this may not be intentional, as it is rumored that the song was sped up after recording. If the song was sped up too much or was sped up using low quality means, it would raise the pitch of the recording, thus apparently sharpening the guitar's tuning.
The song is about a section of the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, in which International Brigades soldiers of the Spanish Civil War attempt to escape the fascists with their stolen horses and are killed by enemy aircraft on a hill on which they are surrounded.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the second single from the Bee Gees 1993 album Size Isn't Everything. It peaked at #4 on the UK Charts. There is also a music video for this song.
For Whom the Bell Tolls are the name of multiple songs:
