Written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton and original Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine (who was booted from the band the previous year), this instrumental was inspired by the story The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. The author is a big influence on Metallica - his work also inspired their song "Thing That Should Not Be."
In the book The Call Of Cthulhu, invoking the name Cthulhu (verbally or written) will bring the beast closer. Fans speculated that Metallica spelled it "Ktulu" in the song title so as not to conjure any dark forces, but the truth is more pedestrian: "Cthulhu" is hard to pronounce and even harder to spell, so they dumbed it down.
The song was originally called "When Hell Freezes Over." Metallica started working on it in 1983 after releasing their debut album, Kill 'Em All. They played it live for the first time at a Halloween show that year at a club called The Keystone in Palo Alto, California, well within the radius of their San Francisco stronghold. At that show they also debuted three other songs that made the tracklist for their second album: "Ride The Lightning" (which became the title track), "Creeping Death," and "Fight Fire With Fire." By the time they went to Copenhagen to record the Ride The Lightning album, the song was retitled "The Call Of Ktulu."
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