Music and those musicians who speak to us. It's such a deeply personal, primal phenomenon.
I sincerely believe its impossible to explain to someone who doesn't hear it, who doesn't get what you experience.
I gave an example of a favourite part of a song by a bass magician once. The first response was along the lines of, well that's nothing special, it's just such and such a scale over such and such a chord.
The bass line touched on something special and inspirational in me. That isn't something I can give to someone else. You feel it or you don't.
Cliff Burton clearly had this effect on plenty of musicians and music fans. That's great. You can't measure it, you can't explain it. And that's great too.