Welcome to now-regular Tuesday posting and the new home of my infant series Song of the Week. I’m sure the premise is easy to grasp – I’ll talk about a cool song each week. Sometimes the song will just be one I want to talk about for no other reason, other times the song might have some link with events, the day in question, or whatever. Today is more of the latter.

This is June 6^th, which is a special day in the world of heavy metal. It is the International Day of Slayer, or International Slayer Day if you’re more concise. This was started in 2006 (6/6/6, heh heh heh) as a means to honor Slayer and also mock certain other entities. Slayer themselves called it a day in 2019, which maybe was a great time to quit a band when looking back in hindsight, but their legacy lives on and this is a day to pay respects to them.

Last year I dove into the thrash masterpiece Reign In Blood to honor the day, this year I’m going all the way back to 1983 and the debut album Show No Mercy to highlight a favorite of mine. This was Slayer’s debut which they put up the money to record. I’d say the gamble paid off after 36 years of heavy metal terror.

Die By The Sword is, much like the whole of the album, an immediate and sinister tune that’s a call to arms, but of course for the legions of the fella down under. (Satan, not Australians) Musically this is a fairly standard early thrash number, in fact maybe a bit more thrash than other songs on the debut. The verses move along at a more fast, speed metal pace while the brief chorus chugs along more in what would become familiar thrash territory. It’s a conventional song structure but the very short chorus makes its final reprise at the end a bit abrupt, though with Slayer abrupt is a household term.

Lyrically the song is full of fairly crude references to glorifying Satan and slaughtering, well, whoever; all of this was common fare among early Slayer songs. There is some actual, biblical basis for the song’s title and premise, as Jesus offered a paraphrased version of “live by the sword, die by the sword” in the Book of Matthew. Of course in the “ceremony of opposites” fashion of heavy metal, Slayer are talking up the concept as opposed to cautioning on it as Jesus did. And that concludes today’s Bible study.

Die By The Sword is a fan favorite from among the early Slayer catalog, it was the band’s 12^th most-played song live and the highest placing among tracks from Show No Mercy, at least according to Setlist.fm. It makes many appearances on the several live materials released over the years and was one of the early songs played on night one of the band’s two-night finale in November 2019. While Slayer changed form well away from the sound of their early material, Die By The Sword was one that stuck around for the duration.