Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

Hetfield, Ulrich and Hammett share the music credit, and Hetfield wrote the lyrics. The song follows Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and conveys the thoughts of a patient unjustly locked in an institution. It opens with clean single strings and harmonics, and its clean arpeggiated main riff gives way to heavy, distorted choruses and an aggressive finish.

It followed the pattern of Fade to Black on Ride the Lightning, and the band repeated that pattern on One and later on The Day That Never Comes. It was the B-side of the Master of Puppets single in July 1986. It is the second most performed song from the album. Performances often include lasers, pyrotechnics and film screens. It was one of four songs from the album that returned to the set in 1997 and 1998 after being retired for some years.