While the initial version had a recognisable shape, Daron’s original lyrics were completely different: ‘Tell me/Tell me what you think about tomorrow/Is there gonna be a pain and sorrow/Tell me what you think about the people/Is there gonna be another sequel?’ System singer Serj Tankian would alter song’s opening, turning it into an memorable clarion call: ‘Wake up/Grab a brush and put a little make-up.’

Even at that early stage, it could only have been a System Of A Down song. It shifted from broken-glass riff to quasi-rapped mutant-funk verses to a simple two-line sunburst of a chorus. Where the songs from System’s first album were designed to set off depth- charges in moshpits everywhere, this new song was simultaneously more experimental and more melodic. It was one of a batch of ideas that the guitarist spent the best part of a year working on in private before he presented them to his bandmates and producer Rick Rubin as contenders for Toxicity.

It didn’t tumble out fully formed, nor was it the only song he had flying around his head. I just started playing that acoustic guitar, and that’s when I started writing Chop Suey!.” “There was an acoustic guitar I used to take around with me. “I was just hanging out by myself on a bed at the back,” says Daron. Modern metal’s greatest song was born in the back of an RV travelling down some long- forgotten highway between stop-offs on the tour for System’s debut album.

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