“Wherever I May Roam” by Metallica

Of everything on Metallica's 1991 album Metallica, "Wherever I May Roam" makes the strangest entrance. Before the riff hits, the intro drifts in on a gong and a sitar, with an overdubbed Warwick twelve-string bass stabbing at a few accented notes before a regular four-string takes over for the rest of the ride. Every string on it sits in standard tuning, and the band sent it out as the album's fourth single in October 1992.

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich wrote it, Hetfield supplied the words and sings them, and the two produced it with Bob Rock, with Randy Staub recording. Kirk Hammett and Hetfield handle the guitars, Jason Newsted the bass, Ulrich the drums. It became a fixture of their shows, and it got the full orchestral treatment with the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Kamen on S&M, then again on S&M2 in 2019.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.