The Mem­o­ry Re­mains is a song by Metal­li­ca from their 1997 al­bum ReLoad. It was played first live be­fore the al­bum was ac­tu­al­ly re­leased. It is about a once-​great, now for­got­ten celebri­ty who is des­per­ate to re­gain her fame but is driv­en half-​mad with her ob­scu­ri­ty. It may be a ref­er­ence to the film Sun­set Boule­vard (1950 film).

The song was the first sin­gle from the al­bum. It was writ­ten by James Het­field and Lars Ul­rich and fea­tured British singer/ac­tress Mar­i­anne Faith­full as a guest vo­cal­ist. When played live, the band en­cour­ages the fans to sing Mar­i­anne's parts. It al­so con­tains lines spo­ken by Mar­i­anne tak­en from the Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe movie The Mis­fits ("Say yes... at least say hel­lo..."). This song was per­formed on SNL when Metal­li­ca was the mu­si­cal guest. Metal­li­ca al­so per­formed this song's riff as a part of their "jams", which were teasers of the song played be­fre the al­bum's re­lease many times. Some of these can be seen in metal­li­ca's vault. It was per­formed with the San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny (con­duct­ed by Michael Ka­men) on S&M.