About The Song
“Orion” is an instrumental by American thrash metal band Metallica from their third studio album, Master of Puppets, released on March 3, 1986, by Elektra Records. There the song features as track seven, and is entirely instrumental. “Orion” was written primarily by bassist Cliff Burton. The song was named after the constellation of the same name, Orion, due to its “spacey sounding” bridge.
On September 27, 1986, while touring in 1986 to support Master of Puppets, the band’s tour bus crashed, killing Burton. “Orion” was played over speakers during his funeral. After his death, Metallica frontman James Hetfield had the notes from the bridge of the song tattooed on his left arm.
“Orion” is a multipart instrumental highlighting Burton’s bass playing. A majority of the song was written by Burton, including the guitar solos. It opens with a fade-in bass section, heavily processed to resemble an orchestra. It continues with mid-tempo riffing, followed by a bass riff at half-tempo. The tempo accelerates during the latter part, and ends with music fading out. Burton arranged each part of the middle section, which features a moody bass line and multipart guitar harmonies. “Orion” contains two solos from Burton, one from Hetfield, and three from the group’s lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett. Burton had originally intended to play all the solos on bass, but reluctantly gave up some to the band’s two guitarists.
While demoing songs for Master of Puppets, “Orion” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” had been one song, titled “Only Thing”; between the demo sessions and the album recording sessions, the two songs were split apart. However, this meant that the song hadn’t been fully written before the band arrived to the studio in Copenhagen. While working on finishing the track, the band made the decision to keep it as an instrumental.
Video
Lyrics
La-la-la, ooh-ooh
Take a hook
Posting a hook
Two, three, four