"Master of Puppets" consists of several riffs with odd meters and a cleanly picked middle section with melodic solo. The song shares a similar structure with "The Four Horsemen" from the band's first album: two verse-chorus sets lead to a lengthy interlude to another verse-chorus set. The opening and pre-verse sections feature fast downpicked chromatic riffing at around 212 beats per minute in mostly time. Every fourth bar of each verse and the outro is cut short by more than a beat; the time signature of these bars is often idealistically analyzed as being , but it is performed with a delay after the third beat, making it closer to (). A lengthy interlude follows the second chorus, beginning with a clean, arpeggiated section over which Hetfield contributes a melodic solo; the riffing becomes distorted and progressively more heavy and Hammett provides a more virtuosic solo before the song eventually returns to the main verse. A riff from "Andy Warhol" by David Bowie (at 0:48) is quoted in the track (at 6:19). It is a homage made by Burton and Hammett to whom Bowie was a huge influence.To Live is to Die, the life and death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton, by Joel McIver, second edition, Jawbone Press, 2016, p.265. The song closes with a fade-out of sinister laughter. The lyrical theme is cocaine addiction.
"Master of Puppets" consists of several riffs with odd meters and a cleanly picked middle section with melodic solo. The song shares a similar structure with "The Four Horsemen" from the band's first album: two verse-chorus sets lead to a lengthy interlude to another verse-chorus set. The opening and pre-verse sections feature fast downpicked chromatic riffing at around 212 beats per minute in mostly time. Every fourth bar of each verse and the outro is cut short by more than a beat; the time signature of these bars is often idealistically analyzed as being , but it is performed with a delay after the third beat, making it closer to (). A lengthy interlude follows the second chorus, beginning with a clean, arpeggiated section over which Hetfield contributes a melodic .so.lo; the riffing becomes distorted and progressively more heavy and Hammett provides a more virtuosic solo before the song eventually returns to the main verse. A riff from "Andy Warhol" by David Bowie (at 0:48) is quoted in the track (at 6:19) It is a homage made by Burton and Hammett to whom Bowie was a huge influence.To Live is to Die, the life and death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton, by Joel McIver, second edition, Jawbone Press, 2016, p.265 The song closes with a fade-out of sinister laughter. The lyrical theme is cocaine addiction.