CHOP SUEY SONG MEAING FULL

The track, when it came out as the lead single on the band’s masterful Toxicity album, was revolutionary on rock radio for both its distinctive music and thought-provoking lyrical content. While it’s always great to see young kids playing hard rock and metal music, it’s hard to imagine System of a Down being on board with this version of the song. Later on, the song’s original melodic line “I don’t think you trust / In, my, self righteous suicide / I, cry, when angels deserve to die” is changed to “That day on the mountain side / Helpless and crucified / Arms, wide, you took up your cross and died.” While there are religious references in the 2001 song, this “Christian metal” version, as it is called in the YouTube description, has “forsaken” the original tune, beginning with the revamped opening line, “Wake up/ I praise the lord with every breath I take up/ Forgive the sins I know I gotta make up/ Like stealing all the cookies on the table/ I try my best to do as I am able.” That’s special to me.It’s the lyrics that add an element of cringe to the cover. “But it's funny that this little song that I had such tiny moment with in that RV has become this thing that people can't imagine their lives without. “It makes me feel proud that what we do still holds up, and that people still connect with it,” says Daron. Last year it notched up 1 billion YouTube views – the first metal song to pass that figure (unless you count Linkin Park’s In The End). Its 600 million-plus Spotify plays are greater than any single Metallica song and bigger than the two most popular Slipknot songs combined. Today, Chop Suey! stands as System Of Down’s most famous song, and a 21st century metal landmark. It’s more popular than any other metal song Let’s make them believe we actually did it.’” “ ‘Self-righteous suicide’, ‘Aerials in the sky’, Jet Pilot.’ I was, like, ‘Wow, that’s cool they think that. “Our fans were starting to say, ‘Hey, these guys are prophets, they’re saying things that hadn’t happened yet,’” says Daron. In their fevered imaginations, System Of A Down had predicted what was coming. In the wake of the Al Qaeda attacks, the internet’s tinfoil-hat brigade zeroed in on the line ‘self-righteous suicide’. And it certainly didn’t stop the song reaching No.12 on the Billboard Rock And Metal charts. I think it made the song more popular.”Įxcept Chop Suey! was never officially banned. It’s almost like you’re not part of the cool group if you’re not banned once or twice. “So many great rock bands have been banned. However, this time the lyrics have been changed, courtesy of Diane O’Keefe (a member of the O’Keefe Music Foundation team), turning the song into an ode to Christian faith. “In music, that's a badge of honour,” says Daron. Taylor Jade Campbell, an 8-year-old singer who last year rocked Slipknot’s The Devil and I, returns to lead a band of teenagers on Chop Suey. The song was banned by radio in the wake of 9/11… or was it?Ĭhop Suey! featured on a list of “lyrically questionable” songs sent by US media giant Clear Channel to its 1100 radio stations following the attacks on the Twin Towers, due to its reference to suicide and the line “I cry when angels deserve to die.” All the effort I put into it… I really wouldn't do anything like that now.” “It took a long time to do, all that body paint. “I just wanted to do something that looked cool – there was no message behind it,” he says. In the Chop Suey! video, Daron is sporting a set of strikingly ornate tattoos on his torso. When we were doing that video, Shavo said, ‘I think we should make it at that seedy ass hotel.’' It's now one of rock's biggest videos ever.ĭaron’s tattoos in the video? They’re not real We used to go with our parents and we’d see all the hookers across the street. “There was a supermarket across the street where all the Armenians used to go to.

CHOP SUEY SONG MEAING FULL

“In the early 80s, the whole of Sunset Strip was full of prostitution, and that hotel was full of prostitutes,” says Daron. The song’s memorable video was filmed in the courtyard of the Oak Tree Inn in Hollywood, near the neighbourhood where Daron and bassist Shavo Odadjian grew up. The video was filmed in the courtyard of a hotel that Daron and Serj remembered from childhood “It was something they used to say: ‘We’ll make chop suey out of him!’ It meant, ‘We’re gonna kill him.’ It tied in with the whole death thing.” It’s partly a play on words – ‘suicide’ chopped in half – and partly a nod to the old black and white gangster movies Daron watched as a kid. He had a ready-made replacement title: Chop Suey!. We were, like, ‘It’s our first single from the album, do we want to give the radio a reason not to play it?’” Received wisdom is that that the label strong-armed the band into changing the song’s original title Suicide for fear that radio wouldn’t go near the song. The band weren’t pressured into changing the title from Suicide to Chop Suey!

Chop suey song meaing