Slayer Songs - Angel Of Death Lyrics

Slayer - Angel Of Death

Slayer - Angel Of Death Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Reign In Blood
Released: 1986

Angel Of Death Lyrics

Auschwitz, the meaning of pain
The why that I want you to die
Slow death, immense decay
Showers that cleanse you of your life

Forced in
Like cattle
You run
Stripped of
Your life's worth
Human mice, for the Angel Of Death
Four hundred thousand more to die
Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead

Sadistic, surgeon of demise
Sadist of the noblest blood

Destroying, without mercy
To benefit the Aryan race

Surgery, with no anesthesia
Fell the knife pierce you intensely
Inferior, no use to mankind
Strapped down screaming out to die
Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of Death

Pumped with fluid, inside your brain
Pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes
Burning flesh, drips away
Test of heat burns your skin, your mind starts to boil
Frigid cold, cracks your limbs
How long can you last
In this frozen water burial?
Sewn together, joining heads
Just a matter of time
'Til you rip yourselves apart
Millions laid out in their
Crowded tombs
Sickening ways to achieve
The holocaust
Seas of blood, bury life
Smell your death as it burns
Deep inside of you
Abacinate, eyes that bleed
Praying for the end of
Your wide awake nightmare
Wings of pain, reach out for you
His face of death staring down,
Your blood running cold
Injecting cells, dying eyes
Feeding on the screams of
The mutants he's creating
Pathetic harmless victims
Left to die
Rancid Angel of Death
Flying free

[ Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of Death

Angel of Death]

Writer/s: HANNEMAN, JEFFERY JOHN
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Angel Of Death

This song is about Josef Mengele (The Angel Of Death), a doctor at Aushwitz who performed gruesome experiments on prisoners during the Holocaust. Many people who don't fully understand metal or Slayer have branded them Neo-Nazis and Satanists, but the song was written by guitarist Jeff Hanneman because he has an interest in World War II. His father landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

"Angel of Death" has become one of Slayer's signature songs and a classic of the thrash metal genre. It is included in all of their live albums and band-produced DVDs. It also appears in the soundtrack to many films, including Gremlins 2, Jackass: The Movie, and the 2005 documentary Soundtrack to War.

This was one of Rick Rubin's early productions. Slayer were signed to Rubin's Def Jam label, which also had Beastie Boys (that's how Slayer guitarist Kerry King ended up doing the solo on "No Sleep Till Brooklyn"). Def Jam's output was distributed by Columbia, but they refused to issue this one, so Rubin turned to Geffen, which handled the distribution.

Rick Rubin took a different approach to producing this track in order to get a very clean sound. Since Slayer plays very fast, Rubin left the reverb off to keep it from turning to mush. He also boosted the drums, which kept the guitars at bay. He explained in Rolling Stone: "Dave Lombardo is this incredible, unbelievably great drummer. One thing that we did was make the drums louder. The nature of distorted electric guitars is that they sound loud regardless of how loud they are. Whereas drums, because it's a natural instrument, depending on how loud they are in the mix really changes that feeling of how hard they're being hit. If you're in a room with the drums and somebody's hitting them hard, they're much louder. So, psychologically, by making the drums louder, it made everything seem louder."

This song has also been covered by other metal bands, including Monstrosity, Apocalyptica, Asinesia, and the Slayer tribute band Dead Skin Mask. Slayer having headlined Ozzfest several times, "Angel of Death" is also found in compilation albums from the annual hard rock festival.

How did Slayer come to write a song about Josef Mengele, of all people? In the book Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces , the interview for Reign in Blood reveals that while the band was touring from their previous album, they did not yet have a tour bus, so they were just driving around in a car, with not much for amusement but paperback books they'd buy at rest stops. Jeff Hanneman ended up reading a book on the topic which sparked his interest.

In Precious Metal, Slayer co-lead guitarist Kerry King has this to say on the controversy over this song: "People get this thought in their heads - especially in Europe - and you'll never talk them out of it. They try to talk you into what they're thinking. When you ask them a question and you give them an answer they don't want, they'll be like 'Well, don't you mean...' And I'm like 'No, dude, I don't mean that.' It's just like, wake up."

A mini-essay about controversy: Why does Slayer go through life with such a target on its chest? Dozens of bands produce material that's far gorier. Almost every heavy metal band you can name pins a pentagram or 666 or other "Satanic" imagery to their album cover. Here is the Reign in Blood album cover , which is part of the reason Def Jam's distributor, Columbia Records, refused to release it - compare it to the work of Hieronymus Bosch . As for subject matter, there's a song out there which makes light of violence against women, murder, mutilation, necrophilia, and cannibalism. That song is "I Hold Your Hand in Mine ," by noted satirist Tom Lehrer. Now, where's the protests and picket groups and censorship and album-burning when it comes to Lehrer? Science needs to find out why bands like Slayer draw so much fire while others get a free pass. In the mean time, we're going to have to assume that Slayer is scary while Lehrer and Bosch are not, and so people are reacting based on raw emotions and not on any kind of logic at all.