In memoriam of @HotelBrowanda, wherever they may be. This was rumored to be about suicide, but it actually deals with the inevitability of death and the belief that we should not fear it. When lead guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser wrote it, he was thinking about what would happen if he died at a young age and if he would be reunited with loved ones in the afterlife. Dharma explained in a 1995 interview with College Music Journal: "I felt that I had just achieved some kind of resonance with the psychology of people when I came up with that, I was actually kind of appalled when I first realized that some people were seeing it as an advertisement for suicide or something that was not my intention at all. It is, like, not to be afraid of it (as opposed to actively bring it about). It's basically a love song where the love transcends the actual physical existence of the partners." Some of the lyrics were inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet. In Shakespeare's play, Romeo swallows poison when he believes Juliet is dead. Juliet responds by taking her own life. This led many people to believe the song was about suicide, but Dharma was using Romeo and Juliet as an example of a couple who had faith that they would be together after their death. For the lyrics that begin, "40,000 men and women," Dharma was guessing at the number of people who died every day from all causes. And no, Bruce Dickinson, it has just the right amount of cowbell.