Leper Messiah

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich wrote this. It's a song dealing with Christian televangelists who use a person's guilt to con them into paying money. By promising people their safety with donations, televangelists keep the money for themselves. Another interpretation is that religion does not deliver everything it promises and ends up manipulating and controlling them, keeping with the overall theme of the album Master Of Puppets.

This song, along with "The God That Failed" on The Black Album, may be a reference to the death of James Hetfield's mother. She died of untreated cancer because her Christian Scientist beliefs went against the methods of treatment that would save her.

Former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine claimed to have written the main riff to this, but this was later refuted by Kirk Hammet in Guitar World magazine in February of 2006. Mustaine isn't credited on the track, and claims the band used his work without giving him credit so they could rip him off.