Holy wars the punishment due spliced together with Jello Biafra's shut up be happy just something i spliced together in like 5 mins. disclaimer i do not own this all rights reserved to capital records and megadeth source-wikipedia.org The song is the first track as well as single from the album. The lyrical theme of "Holy Wars" deals with the Northern Ireland conflict.[13] In an interview with the UK magazine Guitarist, Mustaine says that he was inspired to write the song in Northern Ireland, when he discovered bootlegged Megadeth T-shirts were on sale and was dissuaded from taking action to have them removed on the basis that they were part of fund raising activities for "The Cause" (ie the Provisional Irish Republican Army). Mustaine also recently stated at a gig at Rock City (Nottingham, UK 18/02/2008) that it was at this venue that he wrote Holy Wars, after they travelled there from Ireland in a bulletproof bus.[2] "The Punishment Due" is based on the popular Marvel comic book character, The Punisher.[14] "It's revolving around the way that war is imminent and it doesn't really matter what country it's in... Khadafi [Libya]... Khomeini [Iran]... It's funky how these guys have weird names, these idiots that lead different countries. But it shows you... war's war, no matter where you're at." (Mustaine) [13] "I had to fight to record the second electric solo in this tune the way I wanted! The first take I did as I was just warming up was the one that producer Mike Clink ...