☝️ Key Points
- The song addresses the futility and horrors of war.
- It contains references to literary works by John Donne and Ernest Hemingway.
- The repeating line 'For whom the bell tolls / Time marches on' emphasizes the inevitable passage of time and the inevitable end that death represents.
- The lines 'Take a look to the sky just before you die / It is the last time he will' and 'Now they see what will be, blinded eyes to see' describe the last moments of a dying soldier who looks up to the sky and realizes the reality of his impending death.
- Overall, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' is a dark and contemplative reflection on war, death, and the transience of life.
Interpretation
'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by
Metallica is a song that addresses the horrors and futility of war. The title refers to a quote by John Donne, a 17th-century English poet: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.' This quote suggests that the death of one person affects everyone. It was later used by Ernest Hemingway in his novel about the Spanish Civil War, which is also a reference point in the song.
The lines 'Make his fight on the hill in the early day / Constant chill deep inside' describe a soldier fighting in the cold of an early morning and feeling the internal chill of death. 'For a hill men would kill, why? They do not know' criticizes the senseless violence of war, where people kill and die for seemingly insignificant reasons.
The repeating line 'For whom the bell tolls / Time marches on' emphasizes the inevitable progression of time and the inevitable end that death represents for each individual.
The verses 'Take a look to the sky just before you die / It is the last time he will' and 'Now they see what will be, blinded eyes to see' describe the last moments of a dying soldier who looks to the sky and realizes the reality of his impending death.
Overall, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' is a dark and contemplative reflection on war, death, and the transience of life.