Which song closes Metallica’s self-titled album, commonly called The Black Album?

“The Struggle Within” closes Metallica’s self-titled album, commonly called The Black Album.

It is the twelfth and final track on the original 1991 edition. The song arrives after “My Friend of Misery,” giving the album a forceful ending rather than a quiet or extended instrumental conclusion.

The track was written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the principal songwriting partnership behind much of the album. Its placement helps preserve the record’s overall arc: the album begins with the spacious, instantly recognizable “Enter Sandman” and finishes with a compact, aggressive performance.

Listeners sometimes mistake “My Friend of Misery” for the closing track because it appears immediately before “The Struggle Within” and has a prominent, bass-led identity. Expanded anniversary editions also include extra material, but the original album’s closing song remains “The Struggle Within.”