Blackest Crow

Album: Super Collider (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine originally wrote this song about his mother-in-law's struggle with Alzheimer's Disease. He told Rolling Stone that the song was then "altered to be more about a tragic loss and the depression that follows."
  • Mustaine told Ultimate-Guitar.com how he arranged for his mother-in-law to see an alternative medicine doctor from Phoenix named Dr. Udell who gave her some lion's mane mushroom. As a result her deterioration slowed down. Inspired, Mustaine penned this tune, but once he'd completed it, he decided the lyrics were too heavy as it made it appear that the subject of the song had died. "I didn't want the subject to die so I shelved the lyric," he said. "I wrote 'Forget To Remember,' which is obviously about somebody who doesn't remember. It has a double entendre because it could be a girl saying, 'I don't want to remember this date with this guy.' And I'm sure that's happened to somebody you know. I know I've had a couple of dates where I didn't want to remember them."

    When we were doing the music for the 'Blackest Crow,' I just had this really cool thing and the chorus of the song was really hooky to me," he continued. "And I thought, "You know what? I think this 'Blackest Crow' would work over that" and I tried it and it was like, 'Yes, man. That was perfect.' Because it's so far out of character and when you take risks with stuff like that with your music and you're really putting everything on the line and to know it worked makes it all worthwhile."
  • The song opens with what appears to be the eerie pluck of a banjo. It's actually a six-string guitar mounted on a banjo body.
  • Mustaine reached out to Willie Nelson to guest on the cut, though their schedules didn't line up, and even sent the tune to Miranda Lambert. "Although she declined, her manager was polite enough to reportedly say she didn't feel she could make the song better. I was very flattered," he told Rolling Stone.

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