Songfacts®:

• The song describes sleepless nights filled with paranoia and exhaustion, but according to Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine, it's a metaphor. "It's talking about insomnia, but it's really a tongue-in-cheek song about my life during the '80s, something that anyone who has ever been into staying up all night partying can relate to," he explained.
• Dave Mustaine is a lifelong learned her took a psychology class that led to this lyric. "I was surprised to find out that insomnia is not that you can't fall asleep, it is that you can't stay asleep," he said. "This reminded me of my many years of using stimulants and how hard it was to stay asleep, the sounds that you hear that may or may not really be there, and how my eyes felt. I felt like I was running on empty most of the time and a lot of the references in this song are actually true." >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Dae - Paraparaumu, New Zealand, for above 2
• Headbangers - the core Megadeth demographic - had a hard time with this one. The song opens with a cascade of Middle Eastern instruments before a dance beat comes in to lay the foundation for the song. It was released as a single from the appropriately titled album Risk, which found the band experimenting with more modern sounds. Dave Mustaine said of the track: "I think the song is something that people aren't going to expect. It was inspired by a lot of the English rave and techno bands, but at the same time, it's pretty heavy."
• Rhys Fulber did a remix of this song that was included on Megadeth's Breadline EP and also on a compilation to support America's Second Harvest called Music 4 Food.
• The music video follows the theme of the album art, with a mouse making crucial decisions like whether or not to go for a piece of cheese. It was directed by Len Wiseman, best known for directing films in the Underworld franchise.
• Dave Mustaine collaborated on many of the Risk songs with the band's other guitarist, Marty Friedman, but "Insomnia" he wrote on his own.