With so many songs about epic battles across history, of course there are going to be some particularly disturbing pieces.
- Awesome-sounding as it may be, "The Final Solution" is a very chilling reflection on the sheer villainy, pointlessness, and unreason of The Holocaust. Sabaton stopped playing it for several years because they started getting disturbed by fans singing along to a song about one of the most horrific events in human history. However, during The Last Tour, they played it with piano keyboard and acoustic guitar, inviting fans to sing along with lighters or phone lights in the air, and sang it as a metal song on the 2018 North America tour.
- Country in depression
Nation in despair
One man seeking reasons everywhere
Growing hate and anger
The Führer's orders were precise
Who was to be blamed and pay the price!
- "Inmate 4859". This one's about Witold Pilecki, a leader of the Polish resistance in World War 2. Pilecki deliberately got himself sent to Auschwitz in order to investigate claims about its horrors. While in the concentration camp, Pilecki was heavily tortured. Pilecki finally escaped, but after the war's end he was captured and executed by the new Communist government of Poland. Add in the grim and sinister feel of the music, and the song's downright chilling:
- Inmate in Hell or a hero in prison?
Soldier in Auschwitz, we know his name!
Locked in a cell, waging war from the prison,
He hides behind 4859!
- On the subject of genocide, there's "We Burn", a song about the Srebrenica massacre. It's sung from the perspective of Radovan Karadžić, who orders his troops to slaughter people just for practicing the "wrong" religion and being of the "wrong" ethnicity. He even goes so far as to gloat about how (so he thinks) he won't be prosecuted. (Karadžić was still at large when the song was recorded, though he has since been caught and given a life sentence.)
- Genocide? Who will drag me to court?
There's no crime if you do not get caught!
I am the law!
- On the subject of Attero Dominatus, it is probably the darkest album in their library. The title track is about the Soviets burning Berlin to the ground and giving no mercy. "Nuclear Attack" Talks about the devestation of the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Rise of Evil," is all about the Nazi Germany's rise to power. "In the Name of God," is about Terror in the name of religious extremism. While no one particular incident is used, one video listing songs in historical order puts the 9/11 attacks as part of the inspiration. "We Burn," as discussed above is about the Bosnian Genocide during the Yugoslav wars. "Angels Calling," is all about the trenches of World War 1, something later albums "Great War" and "War To End All Wars," go into more detail. "Light in the Black," while appearing lighthearted, when taken in context of the album, proves why the Peace corps and other humanitarian groups exist. It says a lot when "Metal Crue" is the lightest song thematically and it talks about heavy metal influential bands.
- "To Hell and Back" is an upbeat and badass song... But then there's the bridge:
- Oh, gather 'round me, and listen while I speak
Of a war where Hell is six feet deep!
And all along the shore, where cannons still roar,
They're haunting my dreams, they're still there when I sleep!
- The music video compliments such moments like this hauntingly, blending archival footage of Audie Murphy (the topic of this song) in action with that of the band performing the song and of an actor portraying Murphy as he experiences PTSD in his older years.
- "Firestorm" has this chilling chorus. Fitting for a song about strategic bombing.
- Burn! Burn!
Rage of the heavens!
Burn! Burn!
Death from above!
Die! Die!
Merciless killing!
Burn! Burn!
Death from above!
- You've got to hand it to Joakim, he does a fantastic job of portraying Peter the Great as a truly menacing figure in Poltava. His voice sends chills down your spine.
- The final song of The War to End All Wars, Versailles, initially starts out being hopeful of how the treaty will bring an end to conflict. About halfway through the song, though, the chorus returns to that of Sarajevo, before finally asking if can one war really end all war, before solemnly wondering if another war is already on the horizon.
- "Soldier of Heaven" is an incredibly haunting song told from the point of view of a soldier who, like many of his fellow comrades, froze to death in the Alps during World War I, on what would become known as "White Friday", as he prepares to make his final - and possibly fatal - ascent into action. This is easily one song where full credit should be given to Joakim.
- White Friday, I'll take the stairway to heaven
I'm sky high; when I die, I'll be immortal
Forever, I never, I won't return to Blood Mountainnote
I am the soldier of heaven
- "Father" is appropriately ominous for a song about the father of chemical warfare
and his weapons. Several times, Haber is shown ominously looming over the battlefield while chlorine gas closes in on several unsuspecting soldiers to create a distinctly sinister image. The part where it talks about where it will lead is a dark reference to how Haber´s inventions will be used by Nazi Germany to exterminate over a million people in the Holocaust´s gas chambers using derivatives of his work. Joakim's vocals during the chorus work particularly well on setting the tone:- Father of toxic gas and chemical warfare
His dark creation has been revealed!
Flow over no-man's-land, a poisonous nightmare,
A deadly mist on the battlefield!
- Though it's ostensibly about the Iraq War, "Panzer Battalion" appropriately sounds a lot more like a Nazi anthem than something you'd expect to hear from the United States, referring to Iraqis as "animals", "rats" and "insects" and boasting about how all who stand before them will be annihilated, including bragging about burning Iraqi forces with napalm.
- Rats who dare to stand before us
Feel our guns go live!
Death in the shape of a panzer battalion!
Insect of terror, don't run, face your fate like a man!
