This epic instrumental runs 8:12. It is named after the constellation Orion, as parts of the song evoke a night sky. Lars Ulrich called it "Nine minutes of ever-changing, mind-provoking weird-and-wonderfulness."
Metallica bass player Cliff Burton died on September 27, 1986 when the band's tour bus went off the road (the album was released March 3, 1986). Burton had cited "Orion" as one of his favorite Metallica songs, along with "Master Of Puppets." He had a big part in writing the song (along with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich), and his performance on the track is regarded as one of the best of his career. The song was played at his funeral on October 7th, 1986.
Cliff Burton's bass section was the starting point for this song. "Cliff came up with a very different-sounding piece to anything we'd done before," Ulrich explained in Creem. "To me it sounded like a Swedish folk song. We really liked listening to it and playing it, so we just based the whole song around that middle part."
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