Serj Tankian discussed writing lyrics to the System of a Down hit “Chop Suey!” in a new 93X interview. The lyrics are are, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” and the book Serj is talking about is the Bible.
“With Rick Rubin, our producer, during ‘Chop Suey!’ in the lyrical process, I had the chorus and we had the verse, and I was looking for the breakdown, the middle eighth section, lyrically.
“I was just trying to come up with something, and I was just stuck for a second. We were in the studio, hanging out, and he said, ‘You know what? Let’s take a break, let’s go to my house.’
“We went to his house, he had this huge library, and he goes, ‘Just pick a book, any book.”’And I just reached out, picked the book. And he goes, ‘Open to any page.’
“I opened to a page, put my finger on it, and that was the middle eight lyrically. Using the universe to guide you was incredible, and the way that it worked with the rest of the lyrics was what stunned me.”
He also discussed the state of music in the digital era, “Yeah, look at the democratization of the instrumentation in terms of music, and people being able to create what they want is an incredible thing because don’t have to go into an expensive studio to make a record.
“But the aspect of quality has not changed I think, whether you make it yourself or in a professional studio.
“If you write if quality music, you write quality music. If you write shit music, you write shit music. So that aspect hasn’t changed, it just gives more people the ability to do music which is an amazing feat.” Ultimate-Guitar transcribed his comments.
