Songfacts®:

• One of Fear Factory's most popular songs, "Martyr" was written by their lead singer Burton C. Bell, guitarist Dino Cazares, and drummer Raymond Herrera. Cazares told us the song is about somebody who dies for a purpose.
• This was the first song on the first Fear Factory album, and also one of the first songs the band wrote. In our interview with Dino Cazares, he explained that the guitar riff was inspired by European Techno music - not your typical Metal influence, but Fear Factory was not a typical Metal band. Their progenitors were acts like Devo and Gary Numan.
  
  Dino says he started this song with a Techno beat, then converted it into a guitar riff. "Then we decided to experiment with the structure," he explained. "The guitars and the drums come in right at the beginning, and then all of a sudden it tapers off and this low vocal comes in. Then after four bars, just BOOM - it blasts into the first verse and it opens up. It had a very explosive effect."
• The band didn't envision this song as being the leadoff track to their first album, but Monte Conner at their label Roadrunner Records convinced them that it was the perfect introduction to Fear Factory. Conner felt that showcasing the band's unusual sound would work to their advantage, which it did.
• The album title came from a review the band read for the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was titled: "The Soul of the Machine" in reference to the T-1000 Terminator in the movie. Many Fear Factory album titles come from science fiction movies.