"The Day That Never Comes" is a song by heavy metal band Metallica, and the lead single from their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic.

[1] The working title of the song was "Casper", as shown in the Mission: Metallica videos and in Demo Magnetic.

Like previous ballads and downbeat songs by Metallica, it is the fourth track of the album.

The ending of the song, like the previously mentioned ballads, is purely instrumental, featuring numerous solos and chord progressions.

A music video for the song was filmed in rural Los Angeles County, California on July 31, 2008, directed by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg.

Later, the Marine leads a squad on a patrol when they come across a man with a jumper cable and a woman in a chador next to a broken-down Yugo.

Believing it is an ambush, the squad holds them at gunpoint and orders the woman out of the Yugo, but tensions rise when she approaches the Marine with her hands up.

The music video uses a different theme compared to the lyrics however, instead depicting a military conflict in the Middle East involving the United States (similar to the then-ongoing Iraq War and War in Afghanistan); despite this setting however, no political statement was intended from Metallica.