Walk by Pantera

Walk is a groove metal song by the Texas band Pantera, released on the album Vulgar Display of Power in February 1992. East West Records issued it as the album's fourth and final single on February 15, 1993, and it reached number 35 on the UK Singles Chart, the band's first UK top 40 hit. It has since become one of the most covered songs in heavy metal.

Dimebag Darrell first played the riff at a soundcheck while Pantera toured behind Cowboys from Hell in 1990 and 1991, and the other members liked it right away and kept it. The riff moves in a slow 12/8 swing, with each beat split into three, so it sounds heavy and loose at once. The key and BPM for the track are on its Song IQ key and BPM page.

Pantera recorded the album in 1991 at Pantego Sound in Pantego, Texas, the studio run by Jerry Abbott, the father of Dimebag and drummer Vinnie Paul. Terry Date and Vinnie Paul produced, engineered and mixed the record. The band had demoed only a handful of songs before Date arrived, and most of the album, Walk included, was written in the studio during the sessions. The lineup on the track is Phil Anselmo on vocals, Dimebag on guitar (credited at the time as Diamond Darrell), Rex Brown on bass and Vinnie Paul on drums, and the band shares the songwriting credit. Howie Weinberg mastered the album at Masterdisk in New York, and Doug Sax handled the vinyl mastering. The finished track runs 5 minutes and 15 seconds.

The lyrics are aimed at friends who, after the long Cowboys from Hell tour, treated the band members differently, as if success had changed them. Anselmo has said the song was his answer to them, telling them to take the attitude somewhere else and keep it away from the band. In the chorus, Anselmo shouts the title.

Vulgar Display of Power entered the Billboard 200 at number 44. It was certified gold in the United States in February 1993, the same month Walk came out as a single, and went on to platinum in 1997 and double platinum in 2004. In 1993 the band also released the EPs Walk Biomechanical, Walk Live Material and Walk Cervical, which collected remixes and live recordings of the song. The music video was filmed at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago, and the band's 2012 deluxe reissue of the album included it.

The song stayed in Pantera's set for the rest of the band's career. A live version appears on Official Live: 101 Proof, released in 1997, and the studio cut was included on the 2003 compilation The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits! Guitar World ranked Dimebag's solo on the track number 57 on its list of the 100 greatest guitar solos. VH1 placed Walk at number 16 on its list of the 40 greatest metal songs, and Rolling Stone ranked it number 29 on its 2023 list of the 100 greatest heavy metal songs of all time. In New Zealand it has been certified double platinum on sales and streaming, and it is the band's most watched song on YouTube, with more than 284 million views as of 2024.

Avenged Sevenfold released its version on July 17, 2007, as the lead single from Live in the LBC and Diamonds in the Rough. The band had first recorded it for its All Excess DVD, with Terry Date producing again and Vinnie Paul giving his approval, according to singer M. Shadows in an interview with Blender. Their recording runs 5 minutes and 23 seconds. Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin have covered it as well, and Sully Erna of Godsmack sang it with members of Pantera on the Godsmack DVD Smack This! The industrial group Front Line Assembly sampled the main riff on its 1994 single Surface Patterns. Rex Brown has called it probably one of the most covered songs in the Pantera catalog, and Vinnie Paul said he had played it with nearly every band that came through Dallas.

Rob Van Dam used Walk as his entrance music in Extreme Championship Wrestling. The song plays in the 2019 Netflix heist film Triple Frontier and appears on the soundtrack of the 2022 film Sonic the Hedgehog 2.