7.16.2007 - "Black Swan" not on United Abominations?

Dear ScorpioN,

I just got my copy of Black Swan from the FYE special presale offer. This is such a killer tune, I'm wondering if you could tell us what it is about and why wasn't it on United Abominations? Thanks!!

Jessica

Dearest Jessica,

Isn't Black Swan a great song? One of my favorites from the new album too. I get this question a lot, so I asked Dave Mustaine what it was about and why it didn't make the cut for United Abominations. Here is what he told me: "Black Swan was just a peek into my past and things that creep me out a little bit."

I did a little bit of research on my own on this "black swan" fellow, and I found out that according to author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a black swan is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Much of scientific discoveries for him are black swans—"undirected" and unpredicted. The September 11 attacks are sometimes referred to as a black swan event. The term comes from the belief in Western culture that all swans should be white in color. So by that logic, a black swan would not exist. However, actual black swans were discovered in the 1600s, so the black swan term came to mean that a perceived impossibility actually came to pass.
When I asked him why this track didn't make the final cut on the most recent Megadeth album, Dave said "the reason that it wasn't on UA was that someone felt that A Tour Le Monde (Set Me Free) was a better song and switched them. ATLM was, as we all know, supposed to have been on the Japanese release for a specialty track, since Led Zep is one of my favorite bands." So there was a little bit of a switcheroo going down after the cover of Out on the Tiles was recorded it seems. Hope this clears things up, and don't let a black swan cross your path since it was just Friday the 13th!

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