My schedule is off because mid-week holidays are kind of a pain. But with all the Happy Birthday America stuff out of the way I can get to the Song of the Week a day late. And since it’s not the 4^th of July now I’ll skip the patriotic stuff and go with some Motörhead.

Killed By Death is one of a handful of new songs recorded for the compilation album No Remorse in 1984. This one was chosen as a single, though it didn’t perform terribly well. It would cement itself as one of Motörhead’s most-beloved tracks as time went on despite its lack of commercial appeal.

The Motörhead line-up was a four piece set at the time, with Lemmy obviously in his place as bassist and singer. Phil Campbell and Michael “Würzel” Burston were the guitarists and Pete Gill was on drums.

Killed By Death is a prototypical Motörhead anthem, loaded with noise and sleaze. Lemmy oozes attitude (and makes references to his junk being a lizard and snake) and is a no-good son of a bitch to deal with up until he is “killed by death.” The song’s premise is simple and the execution is sound, as was usual for Motörhead. The song is silly in respects but brings enough sonic firepower to be taken seriously, also a general summation of Motörhead as a whole.

The song got a music video which was banned from MTV for excessive violence. The video is pretty goofy, with Lemmy riding a motorcycle through a wall in the beginning, but winds up being a bit of an ’80’s action scene with the band running from some kind of SWAT team sort of guys. Lemmy gets shot and then is put in the electric chair. His funeral is held and the scene spends a minute or so foreshadowing that Lemmy will ride his motorcycle out of his grave, which is exactly what happens.

Killed By Death didn’t light the singles charts on fire, something Lemmy seemed bothered by. But the song worked its way into the Motörhead setlists and stayed there, finishing out at number 4 in terms of the band’s most-played songs with over 1,200 noted live appearances. It wasn’t a commercial darling but it was well accepted by Motörhead fans.

While Lemmy is an immortal name in rock and metal lore, sadly he would be killed by death, or more specifically cancer, in 2015. But the legacy of Lemmy and Motörhead live on in heavy metal infamy, and Killed By Death was a large part of that legacy.