“I was writing about myself being young and sitting in my room and feeling dejected – I had my head in my hands and didn’t know what to do. I felt I had to get with my friends because I was at an age and a time when my mom was always gone and I was by myself and the only time I felt like I belonged was when I was with my friends.”Dave Mustaine (993)

Note: originally recorded by Metallica, hence the video, but it was a Dave Mustaine song, later recorded by Megadeth, and Metallica changed the lyrics/hence the meaning.

“The lyrics are about a horny gas-station attendant because I was a horny gas-station attendant. I was a teenager living down in the Huntington Beach Harbor and girls would come into the gas station, driving these really expensive cars in bikinis. Fuck, are you kidding me? And that’s back when they had full service, so you would wash the windows and they would sit there in their bikinis and you got to check ’em out while they were sitting in their cars. I don’t think that they disliked it one bit. If they didn’t like it, they would’ve covered up. You’re a really testosterone-driven young kid with a job where you’re doing something you love with motors and doing something that you also love with seeing women. So it’s just that’s kind of how the song turned out.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“‘Loved to Deth’ was a song about a girl that I met as soon as I got to Hollywood, Diana, who was really nice to me. We kind of dated, but she had a girlfriend who was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life. I would date this one girl so she would bring her friend, who ended up dating [Megadeth bassist – Ed] David Ellefson. I wrote the song about her because I couldn’t have her and she was just so far outside of my batting average when I first started seeing her. It’s the “boy meets girl, girl doesn’t like boy, so boy kills girl so no one else will have girl” kind of mentality. That’s a little disturbing. It’s a classic love story if you’re a psychopath. But I wasn’t; it was just a fantasy kind of thing. I just never thought I’d end up engaged to her, but if we were together a couple more months we would’ve been legally married in California law. It was really close. She’s a great girl, and she’s a great woman now. She inspired a lot of songs.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“The “darkest hour” in the song is me knowing that I was alone [after the death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton; check the notes and the original article for the full backstory – Ed]. The lyrics are about Diana, my muse, the same woman I was dating around “Loved to Deth.” I wrote “Tornado of Souls,” “Trust,” “This Was My Life,” “99 Ways to Die” – those were all about her, too. I’m very, very happily in love with my wife, but there’s only been one other person who’s really gone to that depth inside my heart. And I think we all have that where we have a relationship with somebody we really fall in love with but it doesn’t necessarily always last.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“This song was written the day I heard Cliff Burton died. I cried like a f***ing baby.” [The lyrics don’t deal directly with Buxton’s death, however: “In my hour of need you weren’t there” – Ed]. ‘You’ is whoever you want it to be. Your girlfriend, your mom, your sister…I was pretty bummed out because Cliff was really the only thing that made me concerned about Metallica. We’ve pretty much got everything out in the open now. Cliff was the only guy I could really talk to and have any appreciation for. When you ride an hour each way to and from practise, every day, you get pretty close, and when I found out he died, man, I just picked up my guitar because I was so bummed. I needed something, and my guitar’s the only thing that hasn’t f***ed me over yet.”Dave Mustaine (994)

“I think religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people like me who’ve been there. I don’t really write about religion, but I came close with “Holy Wars,” being inspired by the Cause [meaning Irish Republicanism – Ed]. The second part of the song, “The Punishment Due” –  which comes in after the Middle Eastern part – is about Frank Castle from Marvel’s The Punisher.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“The first single, ‘Holy wars’, is about an experience that happened in Ireland. I had found out that the IRA wasn’t as apparently opposed to the English as I was told. Yet the way that was described to me was very watered down. So, I shot my mouth off while there, saying, ‘This one is for the cause! Anarchy in Ireland! Give Ireland back to the Irish!’ I caught a lot of flack from the English press, and I caught a lot from the Irish…and like I give a fuck for the IRA!”Dave Mustaine (995)

“‘Hangar 18’ was something I had from the band I was in before Metallica [called Panic – Ed], also. It was called “N2RHQ” and it was about an environment that was up on another planet. The lyrics about Area 51, that was Nick [Menza, drums – Ed]. He believed in alien lifeforms; I didn’t.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“‘Hangar 18’ is about military intelligence – two words combined that don’t make sense. I can’t understand why they’re hiding stuff from us. It’s our country, too. But see, they run it, and the more I get into politics, the less I become a musician.”Dave Mustaine (995)

“‘Symphony’ was real simple. It came from a Time Life magazine commercial and the movie The Manchurian Candidate, ’cause I had just watched that. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be that person, to have been programmed in your subconscious and not know it and have a job of that importance and then someone just says a word and flips the switch on you and the fucking jig is up for everybody. That’s what “Symphony of Destruction” was about. And then, during the chorus: I like to always have some positive stuff in there, so I included the Pied Piper, that old proverb, poem, whatever it was called, the story.”Dave Mustaine (993)

“My wife used to have this crazy friend who had anxiety and they would go to parties all the time. Her friend would freak out and get in the car and drive off and then I’d get a call from my wife and she’d say, “Eh, she left me again,” and I’d have to get in the car and come get her. And you think it’d be the other way around having a rock-star boyfriend, at the time, that he’d be calling you to come and get him. So I wrote “Sweating Bullets” about her friend. She may have figured out that it was about her – my wife may have told her in a heated moment so her friend would hate me – but I’ve never named her. I don’t think my wife knows where the girl’s at now.”Dave Mustaine (993)