Although it has to be admitted that a lot of Metal lyrics centre around the beer/motorcycles/women triumvirate, it annoys me that people outside the genre dismiss these sort of subjects as being all Metal bands can write about. And you only have to look at the lyric to any song by Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, Bathory or Rainbow --- or most other metal bands --- to see what a fallacy this is. Like any other genre, Metal songwriters take pride in their craft, and while a lot of some of the subgenres may stick to writing lyrical gems such as “Satan is our Lord!” and “
Fuck everything!” there are some very deep and well-crafted lyrics to be found if you even slightly scratch the surface of Metal music and take the time to look for them.
Angel of death" (Thin Lizzy) 1981, from the album "Renegade"
Music and Lyrics by Phil Lynott and Darren Wharton
Okay, first off I’m not the biggest Lizzy fan, though I do love their final album “Thunder and lightning”. This comes from the one prior to that, and it’s the opening track. Now, there’s nothing terribly original about a Metal band singing about the Devil. Everyone from Sabbath to Slayer has done it, with varying degrees of success and believability. But I do like how Lynott here takes the persona of the Evil One, and details his exploits down throughout history as Satan watches Man make it easy for him to consign his soul to the flames.
It’s also very interesting how the narrative switches, and Lynott drops the Satanic persona and becomes just another man
”Standing by his bedside/ The night my father died” as the whole song takes on a more human, and yet somehow darker tone. The idea seems to be that we don’t need the Devil to destroy us: we’re doing just fine on our own; a sentiment that would be echoed two years later by Metallica when they wrote "Jump in the fire". It’s the only song on “Renegade” on which keyboard player Darren Wharton has a credit for songwriting, though he would contribute to nearly half of the final album, two years later. It’s a song without much optimism --- well, you wouldn’t expect much from a song with that title, now would you? --- as Lynott declares
”I foresee a holocaust/ An Angel of death descending/ To destroy the human race!”
There are historical inaccuracies in the lyric --- Lynott mentions
"Hitler’s stormtroopers march/ Right across the Maginot Line”, but the French fortifications failed miserably as a deterrent to German invaders, who simply circumvented them by attacking through Belgium. Also he notes this as
”The year one thousand nine hundred and thirty nine" but the Germans moved against the French in 1940, not 1939. But these inconsistences, while annoying to a niggly f
ucker like me, don’t spoil or ruin the song, and at its heart it’s both an indictment, not only of war, but of Man’s powerlessness in the face of natural disasters, as well as a dire prophecy that our collective are irreversibly on the path to damnation.
Whether he means we all go to Hell when he snarls
”You’ll go down, down, deep underground”, or he’s just referring to being buried, it’s a dark, bleak song with a fatalistic message that belies its uptempo, rocking rhythm.
And a stone-cold classic, a reminder of the talent the world lost so young when Phil was taken from us. Rest in Peace, man. Rest in Peace.
”I've seen a fire start in Frisco
The day that the earth quaked.
I've seen buildings a-blazing,
Throwing up in flames.
I heard men, women and children
Crying out to their God for mercy,
But their God didn't listen
So they were burned alive!
They went down, down
Deep underground
In the great disaster.
I was hanging out in Berlin
In the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty nine.
I've seen Hitler's storm troopers
March right across the Maginot line.
I've seen two world wars;
I've seen men send rockets out into space;
I foresee a holocaust:
An angel of death descending to destroy the human race!
Down, down
Deep underground
A great disaster.
In the sixteenth century there was a French philosopher
By the name of Nostradamus
Who prophesied that in the late twentieth century
An angel of death shall waste this land;
A holocaust the likes of which
This planet had never seen.
Now, I ask you:
Do you believe this to be true?
I was standing by the bedside
The night that my father died.
He was crying out in pain
To his God, he said, "Have mercy, mercy!"
His body was riddled with a disease
Unknown to man so he expected no cure;
But before he died that night
He was lost, insane!
He went down, down
Deep underground
A great disaster.
You'll go down, down
Deep underground
A great disaster.
You'll go down, down
Deep underground
A great disaster.”