“My Friend of Misery” features a main riff written by Jason Newsted and was first intended as an instrumental.
Newsted brought the central musical idea to the album, but the track was eventually developed into a vocal song with lyrics by James Hetfield. It appears as track 11 on Metallica, immediately before “The Struggle Within.”
The instrumental origin is significant because every previous Metallica album had included an instrumental track. “My Friend of Misery” began as a possible continuation of that tradition, but the band ultimately turned it into a full song. Its dark, reflective mood fits the album's more introspective lyrical direction.
The song also illustrates how songwriting credits worked within the band. Hetfield and Ulrich wrote most of the album's material, while ideas from Hammett and Newsted occasionally shaped individual compositions. Newsted's riff became one of his most notable creative contributions to Metallica.