"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as the second promotional single from their second album, Ride the Lightning. Among their most-played songs. The song was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel of the same name about the dishonor of modern warfare and the protagonist's imminent doom during the bloody Spanish Civil War. Specific allusions are made to the scene in which five soldiers are obliterated during an air-strike, after taking a position on a hill.