Songfacts®:

• Not to be confused with the 1986 Slayer track of the same name (which like Al Stewart's "Running Man" is about Dr. Josef Mengele), this Phil Lynott/Darren Wharton composition is a completely different (and some would say, vastly superior) effort, and literally one Hell of a way to open the 1981 Renegade album.
  
  This "Angel Of Death" is not dissimilar to the better known "Sympathy For The Devil," and employs similar imagery; this though is probably coincidence rather than conscious effort or unconscious plagiarism; Lynott reveled in this sort of thing.
• Like the 6:18 second studio version, live cuts include sound effects. Although based on historical incidents, the song includes a reference to the death of Lynott's own father, but this is poetic license; Lynott died less than five years later at the young age of 36 while Cecil Parris lived to a good old age. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2