Songfacts®:

• In this song, Extreme take aim at the despots and warmongers who cause so much death and destruction in the world, often using religion to justify it. Their enemies are the peacemakers, and they want them dead.
  
  "That's one of my favorite songs," lead singer Gary Cherone said in a Songfacts interview. "Lyrically, it certainly was inspired by the peacemakers. There's two parts of two verses, so I look at each little stanza representing the four peacemakers that I was writing about. The first one was Gandhi, the second was Jesus, the third was Martin Luther King Jr., and the fourth was John Lennon with the reference to 'I'm the one with the gun.' Those who were outspoken and that got out of line – the true good radicals – seemed to get snuffed out by the powers that be."
• Part of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech is used in this song. King's estate rarely authorizes it for songs, so it was quite a coup (Living Colour wanted to use it in "Cult of Personality" but were denied).
  
  Gary Cherone made a personal appeal to Martin Luther King III to get permission. "I remember being very nervous that morning calling him up," Cherone told Songfacts. "I remember him being a little bit confused about the title. He got the concept of what we were trying to say, but he thought people would misinterpret it as wanting to kill peacemakers. So it was a little bit of a discussion but he gave us the blessing. I always cherished that moment."
• The song is part of the third Extreme album, III Sides To Every Story. The album is divided into three sections: "Yours," "Mine," and "The Truth." "Peacemaker Die" is the last track on "Yours," a collection of aggressive rock songs that express anger toward politics and injustice. The "Mine" section is more introspective and acoustic, and "The Truth" has an orchestral backing. Extreme had a loose concept for their previous album, Pornograffitti, but went all-in on III Sides To Every Story.
• This is one of Extreme's songs that helped Nuno Bettencourt build his reputation as a guitar god. The band's most popular songs are the ballads "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted," where he plays acoustic, but he's best known as a shredder. Nuno later became Rihanna's live guitarist, a gig he says is quite challenging because her songs cover a range of genres. He appeared with her at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023.