Which Metallica song began as bassist Jason Newsted's main riff idea on The Black Album?

“My Friend of Misery” began as bassist Jason Newsted's main riff idea on The Black Album.

Newsted initially conceived the piece as an instrumental. The idea continued Metallica's earlier tradition of including an instrumental on each album, but the band ultimately developed it into a vocal song for Metallica. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich were credited alongside Newsted as songwriters.

The track appears near the end of the original album sequence and carries a slower, brooding character that fits the record's heavier and more spacious production. Its subject is a person who feels trapped in misery and resists advice, giving the instrumental idea a lyrical and emotional framework.

The song is notable because Newsted had relatively few songwriting credits in Metallica compared with Hetfield and Ulrich. He had joined the band after Cliff Burton's death and had performed on ...And Justice for All, but The Black Album gave him a more visible contribution to the writing process. The original instrumental plan is a common point of discussion when tracing the album's development.