System of a Down's most popular song is almost certainly "Chop Suey!", a nutjob thrasher that swings between blistering screamed bursts and operatic slow sections with a heavenly resonance. It's a breathtaking song, and one of the most emotionally piercing parts arrives when frontman Serj Tankian pleads, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit/Father, into your hands/Why have you forsaken me?"
As it turns out, that line — which fits so well in the song on a musical level — is complete and utter lyrical gibberish. Producer Rick Rubin, who made the System of a Down album "Chop Suey!" appears on, Toxicity, has revealed that that particular lyric was pulled from a random page of a random book that Tankian grabbed off the wall in a moment of panic.
During a new interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Rubin recalled a time in the studio during the Toxicity sessions when Tankian needed a lyric to fill out that aforementioned section of the song, but couldn't muster up the inspiration in his own brain. Rubin suggested he look elsewhere.
"My experience is, when you are open and looking for these clues in the world, they're happening all the time," Rubin said. "And they're happening, often right when you need them… This System Of A Down song called 'Chop Suey!'… I think. You know that song? It has this big bridge section in it where Serj [Tankian], lyric writer — the singer — didn't have words for this one part of the song.
"And we're sitting in the library in my old house and he said 'I don't have words for this' and we were finishing and it's like, OK. 'Any ideas?'; he didn't have any ideas. So I said, 'OK, pick a book off the wall.' He picked a book randomly off the wall, I said, 'open it to any page [and] tell me the first phrase you see.'
"He opened it, first phrase he sees: that's what's in the song, and it's a highpoint in the song. It's incredible, like magic."
Rogan followed up by asking what part Rubin was talking about specifically, and Rubin took a second to think before the words came to him.
"It's the part, 'Father, into your hands. Why have you forsaken me?' It's wild… The context, it doesn't really make sense to what's going on, it's rad."
They then proceeded to watch the music video for "Chop Suey!" while Rubin bopped along and marveled at what System of a Down had accomplished. Watch the full clip below.
