One

In 1990 ONE won the Best Metal Performance at Grammy Award.

“One” was written in November 1987 by Metallica’s principal composers — rhythm guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. The song was released in 1989 as the second single taken from the album (the first being “Harvester of Sorrow”).

For the first 20 seconds of the song there is a series of sound effects with a battle theme; an artillery barrage is heard and continues slightly over a clean tone guitar intro by Hetfield before Kirk Hammett comes in over the top with a clean-toned solo. The song speeds up after Ulrich’s drums come in and continues until each chorus, when the guitars become heavy and distorted before returning to clean. There is a second solo by Hammett halfway through the song, before lyrics cut out and the song gradually gets more heavy and distorted until the “machine gun” guitar build up (played alongside two bass drums) before the final, often highly praised, guitar solo by Hammett, and a final dual solo by Hammett and Hetfield.

“One“‘s opening A-G modulation was written by Hetfield based on an idea prompted by the song “Buried Alive” by the band Venom.
“ I had been fiddling around with that A-G modulation for a long time. The idea for the opening came from a Venom song called “Buried Alive”. The kick drum machine-gun part near the end wasn’t written with the war lyrics in mind, it just came out that way. We started that album with Mike Clink as producer. He didn’t work out so well, so we got Flemming to come over and save our asses.”
- James Hetfield, Guitar World 1991