Kirk Hammett had seen the picture hanging up at Petty's house and remarked that it would be perfect for the single and picture-disk that were about to be finished. The logo and the song's title were added with a plastic layover to the existing artwork. The single release's artwork was done by Alvin Petty. The band liked the sound of 'creeping death' and decided to write a song about the plagues, with the phrase as its title. While watching the scene of the final plague killing every Egyptian first-born child, Cliff Burton remarked 'Whoa – it's like creeping death', as the plague was represented by a fog rolling into the Pharaoh's palace. Metallica was inspired for the song by the second half of the film The Ten Commandments, which is based on the Bible tale of the Plagues of Egypt. The song was called 'Die by His Hand' and had been part of the Exodus setlist for live shows, but was never used on any Exodus albums. The middle section, with its ominous chants of 'Die!' set to a Phrygian mode chord progression, was originally written by Hammett while he was in Exodus. Kirk Hammett wrote the guitar riff for the bridge section when he was 16 years old. It is often thought of as one of the band’s most popular songs and is currently the second-most-played song live by them. Written from the perspective of the Angel of Death, 'Creeping Death' describes the tenth plague of Egypt. It was released on November 23, 1984, as the lead and only commercial single from their album Ride the Lightning (' Fade to Black' and ' For Whom the Bell Tolls', from the same album, were issued as promotional singles). ' Creeping Death' is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica.

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