A Tout le Monde

"A Tout le Monde"
Song

"A Tout le Monde" is the fourth song on Megadeth's 1994 album Youthanasia. Beginning with a melancholy acoustic rhythm and Dave Mustaine's softly spoken vocals, the subject of the song ponders a life that, for whatever reason has clearly approached the end. At first the subject thinks only of himself and his own story, "Don't remember where I was, I realized life was a game. The more seriously I took things, the harder the rules became." The chorus switches to his legacy, and thoughts of his family. "So as you read this, know my friends, I'd love to stay with you all. Smile when you think of me, my body's gone, that's all."

The main chorus, sung in French, translates as follows:

"A tout le monde"

To everyone (litt. "To all the World")

"A tous mes amis"

To all my friends

"Je vous aime"

I love you (plural)

"Je dois partir"

I must leave

There is much debate whether the subject matter is suicide or an inevitable death. The line "So as you read this, know my friends..." implies that what is being heard is possibly a suicide note. "I'd love to stay with you all" suggests, however, that the subject is unwilling to die.

However in an interview conducted about 1994 Dave Mustaine clearly states "It's not a suicide song. What it is, it's, you, it's when people have a loved one that dies and they end on a bad note, you know, they wish that they could say something to them. So this is an opportunity for the deceased to say something before they go. And it was my impression of what I would like to say to people, if I had say, 3 seconds to do so in life before I died I'd say to the entire world, to all my friends, I love you all, and now I must go. These are the last words I'll ever speak, and they'll set me free. I don't need to say I'm sorry, I don't have to say I'm going to miss you, or I'll wait for ya. You know, I'll just say I loved you all, good, bad and different, I loved you all."

Kimveer Gill, the man behind the Dawson College shooting in September 2006 was a fan of the band and stated in his blog on VampireFreaks.com that this song helped convince him to perform the attack. In a performance in Montreal on September 27, shortly after the attack, Dave Mustaine said to the crowd: "The guy who went to Dawson College and shot everyone, it's terrible. Aside from the fact that what he did was wrong, we have a relationship with Montreal, and that really pissed us off." Before the concert in an interview for CBC News Mustaine said: "I was so angry that this guy would use my song, and that he would try and turn that beautiful song into something ugly and nasty. It's for those who lost their lives, and it's a gift to those who are in the process of healing." He also said that Gill was "not worthy of being a Megadeth fan."[1]

2007 remake

A new, faster version of "A Tout le Monde" is included on Megadeth's latest album, United Abominations. It is sung as a duet along with Cristina Scabbia, singer of the Italian gothic metal band Lacuna Coil. This is the first single released from the album with a new music video made for it. The song has the revised title "A Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)" to distinguish it from the original.[2] The new video can be viewed at Megadeth's official website.

Trivia

• The woman and child in the 1994 music video are Dave's wife and his son.
• At the start of the music video of the 2007 version of A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free), brief clips of Mustaine singing from the original 1994 video can be seen on a television screen.

External links

• Lyrics from the Megadeth site
• Megadeth's official website (currently includes the new 2007 video on the main page)