Written by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King for the 1986 studio album Reign in Blood, the song's religious concept is about overthrowing Heaven.
[5] The song, along with the rest of Reign in Blood, was recorded in 1986 in Los Angeles, California, with producer Rick Rubin.
[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.
"[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.
"[15] The song was also included in the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in-game radio station "V-Rock".
[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".
[22] In 2018, the song was used for an OVO Energy commercial in which we see a bunch of various appliances such as washing machines, microwaves and TVs out on a beach.
The song starts 30 seconds into the commercial while we hear the speech from the 1976 movie Network 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.
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] 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.