Raining Blood
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Raining Blood is the final song from thrash metal band Slayer's third album, Reign in Blood. .
[edit] Sound and history
The song is almost universally regarded as a masterpiece by metal fans. The title itself plays on being a near homophone with the album title. Slayer's guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King both wrote the lyrics to the song, but the music was written by Jeff Hanneman, who also wrote the classic "Angel of Death", which was the first track on Reign in Blood. No live Slayer CD or DVD has been released without it and it remains a popular concert staple. It was also issued as a single by Def Jam Recordings.
On the original 1986 pressing, Raining Blood (track 10) starts at the breakdown of the previous track (Postmortem). This error was corrected on the 1998 re-release.
In 2003 Slayer toured playing Reign in Blood in its entirety throughout the fall, something they never did on the original album tour, under the tour banner Still Reigning. Their playing of the final song "Raining Blood" culminated with the band being drenched in a rain of fake blood.
The song ranked #8 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs [1].
[edit] Other appearances
- The song was covered by Tori Amos on the cover album Strange Little Girls in 2001. The cover featured Tori's single vocals accompanied by only a piano, with little resemblance to the original song except the lyrics. Slayer was reportedly confused about the cover [1], but liked it enough to send Tori and her crew some Slayer T-shirts, to much appreciation. [2]
- The song was featured in the Die Hippie, Die episode of South Park in which Cartman used it as a means to defeat hippies, although it is incorrectly identified as death metal.
- The song was featured on the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in-game radio station V-Rock.
- The song (along with Slayer's "Mandatory Suicide") was also sampled by rapper Lil Jon in his 2004 song "Don't Fuck Wit' Me." New Zealand based Drum 'n' Bass duo Concord Dawn also sampled the riff for a song also entitled "Raining Blood," on their 2003 album Uprising. The track proved to be a modest club hit in New Zealand and Australia, and to a lesser degree in the United Kingdom.
- Reggie and the Full Effect had covered the song for an import EP, using a synthesizer to replace the lead guitar for an odd effect.
- Blood Has Been Shed also used parts of the famous riff for their song "Signs & Omens".
- Vader has put out a cover on their Live in Japan CD.
- Powernoise band Terrorfakt has also done a hard industrial remix/cover of it.
[edit] References
- ^ "VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs", 1-4 May 2006, VH1 Channel, reported by VH1.com; last accessed September 10, 2006.
| Slayer |
| Tom Araya | Jeff Hanneman | Kerry King | Dave Lombardo |
| Discography |
|---|
| Albums and extended plays: Show No Mercy | Haunting the Chapel | Hell Awaits | Reign in Blood | South of Heaven | Seasons in the Abyss | Divine Intervention | Undisputed Attitude | Diabolus in Musica | God Hates Us All | Eternal Pyre | Christ Illusion |
| Live albums: Live Undead | Decade of Aggression |
| Compilations: Soundtrack to the Apocalypse |
| Videos and DVDs |
| Live Intrusion | War at the Warfield | Still Reigning |
| Songs |
| Angel of Death | Jesus Saves | Raining Blood | Behind the Crooked Cross | Blood Red | Dead Skin Mask | Seasons in the Abyss | Eyes of the Insane | Jihad |
 |
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