RAINING BLOOD

'"Raining Blood"' is the final track from thrash metal band Slayer's 1986 album, ''Reign in Blood''. The song has become a live staple played at every Slayer show and released on every Slayer live album and DVD. The song will be featured in ''.

Contents

Sound and history

Appearances in Media

Covers

References

Links

Sound and history

The song is 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 wrote the lyrics with Hanneman writing the music. 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 1991 a double live video was made for the song with "Black Magic", from the 1983 album ''Show No Mercy''. The video omits the solos at the end (as is often done in concert) and goes into "Black Magic" after the line "Now I shall reign in blood".
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, and was released on the DVD ''Still Reigning''.^[1]
The song ranked #8 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs.^[2]

Appearances in Media

The song was also featured in the 127th South Park episode Die Hippie, Die aired on March 16, 2005.^[3] The plot centers on the town of South Park, which has been overrun by hippies. Eric Cartman states "Hippies can't stand death metal" and proceeds to drill through a hippie concert onto the main stage to change the audio to "Raining Blood", making the hippies run away. King found the episode humorous and expressed his interest in the show ending the interview with "It was good to see the song being put to good use, if we can horrify some hippies we've done our job."^[4] "Raining Blood" was also included in the in–game radio station .^[5] Raining Blood will be a playable song in the upcoming Activision video game ''.

Covers

In 2001 the song was covered by Tori Amos on her album ''Strange Little Girls''. King states the cover was odd; "It took me a minute and a half to find a spot in the song where I knew where she was. It's so weird. If she had never told us, we would have never known. You could have played it for us and we'd have been like, 'What's that?' Like a minute and a half through I heard a line and was like, 'I know where she's at!'"^[6] In response, Slayer sent some T-shirts back to Amos, which she said was appreciated. ^[7] The song was also covered by Malevolent Creation, Chimaira, Vader, Diecast, and Erik Hinds, who covered the entire album on a H'arpeggione.^[8]
The guitar riffs from "Raining Blood" and "Mandatory Suicide" were sampled by rapper Lil Jon in the song "Stop Fuckin Wit' Me" from the album 2004 ''Crunk Juice''. It was Rick Rubin's only collaboration with Lil Jon on the record, Jon wanted to attempt to create a black version of Suicidal Tendencies "Institutionalized".^[9]

★ 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.

★ Swedish, melodic death metal band In Flames plays the song's intro riff in the middle of their performance of "Scorn" on their live album, The Tokyo Showdown.

★ No Reedeming Social Value recorded a live version of Raining Blood.

★ Freaklabel has been known to play an instrumental version during live performances as part of a tribute to their influences.

★ Blood Has Been Shed also used parts of the riff for their song "Signs & Omens".

★ Vader has put out a cover on their ''Live in Japan'' CD. They also recorded it the studio and released it as a bonus track for the Japanese version of ''Impressions In Blood''.

★ Powernoise band Terrorfakt has also done a hard industrial remix/cover of it.

★ Dr. Wily and the Robot Masters have been known to include Raining Blood (occasionally in its entirety) in the middle of their song 'A Boy And His Blob' during live performances around North America during their 2003-2004 tours.

★ Goregrind band Cuntgrinder released a song called "Dildo Megawatt (Slaytanic Version)" which is based off of Raining Blood. Cuntgrinder combined the famous riff at the beginning of Raining Blood along with the entire intro, but the lyrics are not the same.

★ Stormtroopers Of Death included a few riffs of the song on their album Live at Budokan.

★ Seminal New York Ska-Thrash band Choking Victim uses the main riff briefly in a break down in the song "In My Grave" on their one and only album, No Gods, No Managers.

★ Self-proclaimed dirty south punk rockers Whole Wheat Bread have been known to cover the song during live sets.

★ S.O.D. played the first part of the song in the middle of their song Speak English or Die on their live album/dvd Live At Budokan/Speak English or Live.

★ The Greenskeepers performed a cover called "Bloodclots" on their album ''Polo Club''.

★ Hardcore band Hatebreed occassionially play the first couple of riffs from the song in their live set.

★ The metal from Seattle,WA Fall Of Troy had a sample of the Raining Blood riff.

★ Turisas Have covered raining blood live.

References

1. Slayer: Still Reigning The landmark metal album performed in its entirety. Patrizio, Andy
2. ''"VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs"'', 1-4 May 2006, ''VH1'' Channel, reported by VH1.com; last accessed September 10, 2006.
3. Die Hippie, Die
4. Songs about God and Satan – Part 1: An Interview with Slayer's Kerry King Atkinson, Peter
5. Vice City Radio - V Rock
6. A Conversation With Kerry King Barker, Samuel
7. http://www.hereinmyhead.com/musicians/others.html
8. RIB - Erik Hinds Couture, François
9. Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz “Stop Fuckin Wit Me” Breihan, Tom

Links

★ Encyclopaedia Metallum entry