Dogs of Chernobyl
The Sick, The Dying... and The Dead!
2022
Duration: 6:04
Track number: 4
Writers
Lyrics by: Dave Mustaine
Music by: Dave Mustaine
Theme
This track serves as a poignant and dramatic commentary on the **Chernobyl disaster** of 1986, but it uses the event as a metaphor for deep personal betrayal and abandonment. The narrator is 'left behind' like one of the literal **'dogs of Chernobyl'**—the animals abandoned in the exclusion zone. The disaster imagery ('poisoned rain,' 'radioactive pain') parallels the emotional fallout of being deserted by a loved one.
Lyrics
It was **springtime**
The minutes simply drifting away
Then **everything stopped in the world**
(**Fallout**) **radioactive clouds**
(**Fallout**) hides the **exclusion zone**
(**Fallout**) and **you were nowhere to be found**
I **see your face, wherever I turn**
There's **blood on my lips**, as my **eyes start to burn**
You **vanished, and left me behind**
Like one of the **dogs of Chernobyl**
**Where did you go?**
**Nuclear winter is here**
**Reactor four's still belching clouds**
There's **no one left to hear a sound**
(On and on, fallout) on and on, I keep searching for you
(But I know, fallout) I know **you're never coming back**
(Not for me, fallout) not for me, or for anyone, anywhere, anyway
I **see your face, wherever I turn**
There's **blood on my lips**, as my **eyes start to burn**
You **vanished, and left me behind**
Like one of the **dogs of Chernobyl**
**Where did you go?**
I **see your face, wherever I turn**
My **hair's falling out**, as my **skin starts to burn**
You **vanished, and left me behind**
Like one of the **dogs of Chernobyl**
**Where did you go?**
**Vault breach, too close is dead, massive exposure**
I must **escape, and navigate this concrete enclosure**
**No warning and no pain, only shock and then dread**
No one coming, no one going, **I'm alive with the dead**
**Nausea overwhelms my brain**, **distance is the goal**
**Stomach spasms, leaking gut, I have lost all control**
**Saliva gurgling, I'm retching, till I overwhelm the bowl**
I ask God, in **repentance, do you still want my soul**?
**Bodies strewn everywhere, no need for cremation**
**Daylight coming into view, I sense there's no salvation**
**Stagger out into the open**, my eyes fixed and staring
**Armed patrol, red lights on, the sirens are a' blaring**
**I am the walking dead**, and I'm taken into safety
They ask the **time of death**, because my **skin's looking pasty**
**Transfusions, test tubes, and clinical eyeing**
**Purulence and decay**, my **deathly complying**
**Blankets of smoke, orifices bleed**
**Bloating bellies, and legs getting weak**
**Cerebral swelling, organs liquifying**
**Acute radiation, this is how they die**
**This is how they die**
**This is how they die**
