Raining Blood

"Raining Blood" is a song by the American thrash metal band Slayer. Written by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King for the 1986 studio album Reign in Blood, the song's religious concept is about overthrowing Heaven.

This article is about the Slayer song. For the phenomenon of blood falling from the sky, see blood rain.
"Raining Blood"
Song by Slayer
from the album Reign in Blood
ReleasedOctober 7, 1986
Recorded1986, Los Angeles, California
GenreThrash metal
Length4:14
LabelDef Jam
Composer(s)Jeff Hanneman
Lyricist(s)
Producer(s)
Audio sample
A sample from "Raining Blood", where the core riff comes into play after a thirty second introduction.[1][2]
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The song is four minutes and fourteen seconds in duration. It ends with a minute of rain sound effects. Described as a "classic" by Allmusic,[3] it is noted by fans as one of Slayer's most popular songs. As an almost permanent addition to their live sets, both Hanneman and King acknowledged it as their favorite song to play live. Many of Slayer's live performances of the song have been captured on the band's live albums and also multi-band compilation albums including MTV2 Headbangers Ball.

There have been many appearances of the song in the media and elsewhere, including the South Park episode "Die Hippie, Die", and the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, where it is considered difficult to play.

Writing and concept

"Raining Blood" was written by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.[4] D. X. Ferris said that "when Hanneman wrote the song, he envisioned a scene from a dark street or bloody back alley", and later went on to say that the song "described a banished soul awakened and hungry for vengeance." The second verse was written by King, who "pick[ed] up on Hanneman's title and in his new direction".[5] The song, along with the rest of Reign in Blood, was recorded in 1986 in Los Angeles, California, with producer Rick Rubin.[6][7]

Hanneman explained that "it's about a guy who's in Purgatory 'cause he was cast out of Heaven. He's waiting for revenge and wants to fuck that place up." King later said that "the rest of the song explains what happens when he starts fucking people up. The lyrics 'Return to power draws near' is because he's waiting to get strong enough again to overthrow Heaven. And then 'Fall into me, the sky's crimson tears' is everybody's blood flowing into him. So basically, 'Raining Blood' is all the angels' blood falling on him."[8]

Composition

"Raining Blood" is four minutes and seventeen seconds long, and is Reign in Blood's closing track.[9][3] The song is one of three songs from the album that exceeds three minutes in length.[3] Steve Huey from Allmusic proposed that "Reign in Blood opens and closes with slightly longer tracks (the classics 'Angel of Death' and 'Raining Blood') whose slower riffs offer most of the album's few hints of melody."[3] The song's music was written solely by guitarist Hanneman[4] (who was also a primary writer of the song's lyrics), who presented both hostility and anger in his writing.[3] Huey also noted that "the riffs are built on atonal chromaticism that sounds as sickening as the graphic violence depicted in many of the lyrics", and said that it was "monstrously" and "terrifyingly evocative".[3]

Clay Jarvis from Stylus Magazine wrote that the song possessed "a red-herring, scorched-earth intro, eerie thunderstorm-and-tom-tom-triplet interlude and one of the most recognizable riffs in metal history. It is a dynamic, explosive and fitting end to a remarkable, violent experience."[10] D. X. Ferris, author of the 33⅓ book Reign In Blood[11], wrote that the song "lunges to life with its core riff, the ten most recognizable notes in metal, a diminished-scale run down the fretboard that's the most badass guitar riff since Black Sabbath's 'Sweet Leaf'."[1] Guitarist Kerry King said that "The intro is big with the two harmony and then the first beat that Dave [Lombardo] does, that double-kick thing, and it's like this backwards gallop that gets the crowd going wherever you are."[2] The piece ends with a full minute of "rain sound effects," closing Reign in Blood.[12]

Live performances

"Raining Blood", along with Reign in Blood's opening track "Angel of Death", is an almost permanent addition to Slayer's live set-list, and was Hanneman and King's favorite track to play live.[13] At the end of the Still Reigning DVD, there is a finale with the band covered in fake blood during the performance of "Raining Blood".[14] When asked which song holds best, both Slayer guitarists replied "Raining Blood". Hanneman admitted that he "still love[s] playing that song live. You'd think we'd be tired of it – I mean, I'd love to know how many times we've played it live. That would be really interesting." King said "we could be playing in front of Alanis Morissette, and the crowd loves the part."[2]

King told D. X. Ferris that "whenever 'Raining Blood' comes in the set, it just electrifies the whole crowd. People just shit when you hit the first few notes. Like 'Jesus Christ it's a guitar, settle down.'"[8] In the past, Slayer used fake blood to cover their bodies when performing the song live. However, when asked about using fake blood in future performances, King remarked "It's time to move on, but never say never. I know Japan never saw it, South America and Australia never saw it. So you never know."[15]

Appearances

The song was featured in the 127th South Park episode, "Die Hippie, Die", which aired on March 16, 2005.[16] Slayer guitarist Kerry King found the episode humorous and expressed his interest in the show, mentioning it in an interview, saying "It was good to see the song being put to good use. If we can horrify some hippies, we've done our job."[15]

The song was also included in the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in-game radio station "V-Rock".[17] "Raining Blood" is a playable song in the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, where it is renowned for being one of the hardest songs in the Career Mode setlist: a 2008 job advertisement for future Guitar Hero playtesters listed the song as one of four that potential applicants had to be capable of playing on the highest difficulty level.[18] The song is also featured in Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, with the first and only five note chord in the series.[19] It was released as a downloadable song for Rock Band 3 on April 10, 2012, along with "South of Heaven" and "Seasons in the Abyss". It was also released as a downloadable song for Rocksmith 2014 on May 19, 2015 as part of the Slayer Song Pack.[20][21]

At the mixed martial arts event UFC 97 on April 18, 2009, fighter Chuck Liddell made his penultimate appearance in the UFC and used "Raining Blood" as his entrance music.[22]

Cover versions

The song has been covered by Malevolent Creation, Havok, Natalie Prass, Body Count, Vader, Diecast, Quiet Company, Reggie and the Full Effect,[23] and Erik Hinds, who covered the entire Reign in Blood album on a H'arpeggione.[24] The guitar riffs from "Raining Blood" and "Mandatory Suicide" were sampled by rapper Lil Jon in the song "Stop Fuckin Wit' Me" from the 2004 album Crunk Juice.[25] It was Rick Rubin's only collaboration with Lil Jon on the record.[26] Jon wanted to create a "black version" of Suicidal Tendencies' song "Institutionalized".[27] The New Zealand drum and bass group Concord Dawn produced a drum and bass cover version on their album Uprising, on which they partially sample the famous opening riff of the song.

Tori Amos

In 2001, the song was covered by Tori Amos on her studio album Strange Little Girls. The cover of "Raining Blood" was suggested by bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who told Amos that she "had tried pretty much every other genre of music, from rap to new wave to punk to country to pop, why not some metal?"[28] Meldal-Johnsen chose the album Reign in Blood, and after listening to it, Amos agreed to make a cover version of "Raining Blood".[28] In an interview, she stated that upon first hearing the song, the imagery she thought of was "this beautiful vulva [laughs] ... raining blood over this male abusive force".[29]

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!'"[30] In response, Slayer sent some T-shirts to Amos, which she said was appreciated.[31]

Reception

Stylus Magazine's Clay Jarvis said that the song is fit to be the closing song for Reign in Blood, and also noted that the song, along with other songs from Reign in Blood, has "manic, hacksaw guitars, monsoons of double-bass drum rolling and from-the-throat barking—all note-perfect and precise—that still smokes the asses of any band playing fast and/or heavy today".[10] J. Bennett affirmed that the song "still make[s] other metal bands sound like frail pussies".[32] Steve Huey said that it was a classic, and that its "slower riffs offer most of the album's few hints of melody".[3] Erik Hinds from About.com said that the piece has unexpectedly become a ballad.[33] Derrick Harris, an editor of the official newspaper of University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, said that it had a "blistering solo".[34] It peaked at number 64 in the United Kingdom, where it would stay on the chart for three weeks.[35]

Personnel

Charts
Chart (1987) Peak
position
UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[35] 64
gollark: What about upside-down mints showing in lineages?
gollark: If you breed the "CB Prizes" on April Fools' you get an upside-down dragon!
gollark: Pagination, but all the pages are the same.
gollark: We must elect a new TJ09.
gollark: I nominate TJ09 for a prize!

References
  1. Ferris 2008, p. 138
  2. Bennet 2009, p. 53
  3. Huey, Steve. "Reign in Blood - Slayer". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved November 10, 2017.
  4. "Raining Blood". Reign in Blood (Compact Disc). Slayer. Def Jam Recordings. 1986.CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. Ferris 2008, pp. 78–79
  6. "An exclusive oral history of Slayer". Decibel Magazine. Archived from the original on 2006-08-13. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
  7. Ferris 2008, p. 68
  8. Ferris 2008, p. 139
  9. "Track listing". Reign in Blood (Compact Disc). Slayer. Def Jam Recordings. 1986.CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. Jarvis, Clay (1 September 2003). "Reign in Blood". Stylus Magazine. Retrieved 7 April 2007.
  11. ISBN 978-0-8264-2909-4
  12. Bennet 2009, p. 54
  13. Davis, Brian (26 July 2004). "Knac.com interview with Jeff Hanneman". KNAC.com. Retrieved 13 December 2006.
  14. Patrizio, Andy (11 January 2005). "Slayer: Still Reigning The landmark metal album performed in its entirety". IGN. Retrieved 5 February 2007.
  15. Atkinson, Peter (24 April 2006). "Songs about God and Satan – Part 1: An Interview with Slayer's Kerry King". KNAC.com. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  16. "Die Hippie, Die". South Park Studios. Retrieved August 15, 2010.
  17. Phares, Heather. "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Vol. 1: V-Rock review". Allmusic. Retrieved August 15, 2010.
  18. "Test the New Guitar Hero!-Neversoft is hiring now!". Become A Video Game Tester. 3 December 2008. Archived from the original on 9 December 2014. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
  19. "Guitar Hero: Smash Hits for Xbox 360 – Reviews". G4tv.com. . Retrieved 2010-07-11.
  20. "'5 Slayer classics including "Raining Blood" & "Angel of Death" arrive as #Rocksmith2014 DLC this week!'". Twitter. May 19, 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  21. "Rocksmith® 2014 – Slayer Song Pack". Steam. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  22. The Canadian Press (April 19, 2009). "Silva wins, Liddell loses at UFC 97". CBC.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved June 15, 2009.
  23. "All artists that have performed Raining Blood". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
  24. Couture, François. "RIB – Erik Hinds". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-04-07.
  25. Jeffries, David. "allmusic ((( Crunk Juice > Overview )))". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-07-11.
  26. "allmusic ((( Crunk Juice > Credits )))". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-07-11.
  27. Breihan, Tom (2005-01-14). "Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz "Stop Fuckin Wit Me"". Pitchforkmedia.com. Archived from the original on 2008-03-09. Retrieved 2007-04-04.
  28. S. Jacobs, Jay (2006). "Glory of the Nineties". Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 106–107. ISBN 1-4234-0022-4.
  29. "The Quietus | Features | A Quietus Interview | Tori Amos Interview: Song, Slayer & Staying True To Her Vision". The Quietus.
  30. Barker, Samuel (2002-02-09). "A Conversation With Kerry King". Rockzone.com. Retrieved 2007-02-09.
  31. Meade, Zaedryn (September 10, 2001). "Archetypes and Wine: Tori Amos Roundtable Interview". MusiqQueen. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
  32. Bennet 2006, p. 49
  33. Hinds, Erik. "Reign in Blood: Album review and songs from About.com". About.com. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  34. Harris, Derrick. "CD REVIEW: Old Slayer album makes up for what new bands lack". The Spectator. 2001-09-06.
  35. "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  36. "Reign in Blood – Slayer". AllMusic. Retrieved 2010-11-11.

Further reading
  • Winegarner, Beth (2006). "Chapter 1: Words Like Weapons". Read the Music. Lulu. pp. 5–15. ISBN 978-1-84728-716-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Ferris, D. X. (2008). Reign in Blood. 33⅓. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-2909-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Bennet, J. (2009). "Chapter 4: Who'll Stop the Reign?". In Mudrian, Albert (ed.). Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces. Da Capo Press. pp. 48–55. ISBN 978-0-306-81806-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

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