We're Only Gonna Die

In Charles Darwin's book Origin of Species, he wrote: "To have arrived on this earth as the product of a biological accident, only to depart it through arrogance, would be the ultimate irony." Bad Religion lead singer Greg Graffin adapted and evolved this passage into this song, where he sings: "We're only gonna die from our own arrogance." Graffin later became an evolutionary biologist, earning a Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell University in 2003 and lecturing at UCLA.

This song is about the change from old to new. After early man (old) walked away, modern man (new) took control. The modern man built a huge empire then slaughtered his own kind. The last two lines in the song say: "We're only gonna die for our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time," meaning that we shouldn't rush into the future.

This song teaches us a moral, and uses Hitler as an example. The line, "Their minds weren't all the same, to conquer was their goal" is addressing the Nazis. Hitler was part Jewish, which explains "He slaughtered his own kind." The line, "He died a confused man, killed himself with his own mind" is about how Hitler killed himself and he really didn't know what he was doing in the end.