[ninkendo]

It’s even more obvious when you consider Metallica’s particular songwriting process at the time: James would mess around making cool riffs, record them into a riff track (just a big pile of his favorite riffs put into one big tape in no particular order), then he and Lars would sit down and listen to it, pick the best ones, and build a song around them.

The 5/8 “stutter” in the verse almost certainly came from the original riff track, and when Lars had to add a drum beat to it, he simply mirrored what James was doing, and that’s how it made its way into the song. It’s not really rocket science.

[devnullbrain]

I can easily imagine that 'wrong' timing sneaking in from the time needed to position the hands ready to slide up the neck.

[ninkendo]

I get that impression from a lot of James’ early riffs. Battery was that pretty much the whole song.