Songfacts®:

• The song seems to be about the general decay of the world that many still refuse to see and suggests that we're getting what we deserve. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Eric - Fullerton, CA
• This was the band's debut single. Prior to its release, the record company scattered small pamphlets with lyrics and the date of the song's debut on the band's website in order to create interest.
• Scars on Broadway is a side project started by System of a Down's lead guitarist and part songwriter Daron Malakian and his fellow System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan.
• Dolmayan explained their Songwriting process to Artist Direct: "Daron brings in the songs about 85 to 90 percent done. He spends most of the time crafting the songs before he gets in the studio. Once we get in there, I might make a little suggestion here or there. Sometimes the suggestions work great, and sometimes they don't work at all. It just depends on what the suggestion is. For me, making this record wasn't different at all. I did the same thing for Scars that I did for System. It went a little easier, because there were only two of us making the decisions. So that's a little less complicated, but it really wasn't that different from System."
• Malakian explained to Artist Direct the band's name: "It has nothing to do with Broadway. There are these light posts on Broadway Street in Glendale (California), and I've always thought they were strange. As a teenager, I went to Glendale High, and there are these light posts that have Swastikas scarred on the bottom of them. It's not graffiti. It's actually in the design of the light posts. They're scarred in there. The name comes from that. "Scars on Broadway" are the swastikas on the light post. It just baffles me that they keep them. They're one of the oldest things that remain here in Glendale. I'm not sure that they're the Nazi Swastikas, because they might've been here before that, but I've always found them intriguing. It's just an image that's very interesting to me, and it's dark. I can take that name, and it means something else to me. People sometimes say, "All the world's a stage." Well Scars On Broadway can also mean "All the world's a stage, and all we are is a scar on that stage." It can take on a couple different meanings. The idea of the name came from that light post, but then when I actually sat down and thought about the name, the meaning of the name meant something absolutely different to me, and it had nothing to do with that light post anymore [Laughs]."
• The album was produced by Malakian though Rick Rubin, who has worked with System Of a Down, offered a few suggestions during rehearsal sessions.