Songfacts®:

• One of Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine's pet peeves is procrastinating people who waste other people's time as well as their own. "Time is the most valuable thing we have in this world," he said. "How many beats of the heart do I have left? How many breaths I am going to take before my last? How many times will I get to say 'I love you' again to my wife, to my kids, to my fans? I don't know, but I'm going to cherish every moment."
• Mustaine wrote "Killing Time" about somebody in his past, plus some situations that others have gotten themselves into with the band.
  
  If I told me once, I told me a thousand times
  It's just a matter of time, you'll screw the world inside-out
  You're a sick, psychopath
  You squander everything, and then laugh
  
  Mustaine lays into lackadaisical time wasters on this and other The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! tracks. "It's stripping back the paint trying to cover up the mess that this person is," he told Kerrang. "I actually know someone who's just lost everything. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars and a multi-million dollar company: gone. And he'd been warned. He was the slick dude in 'Life In Hell.' He was the 'Junkie.' He's definitely the guy in 'Killing Time.'"
• According to a March 2022 interview with SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Megadeth originally planned to drop "Killing Time" as the first single from The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead. They eventually plumped for "We'll Be Back" to lead the album.
• The Leo Liberti-directed video is the fifth installment of Megadeth's epic multipart short film revealing the origins of the band's iconic mascot Vic Rattlehead. It follows the visuals for "We'll Be Back," "Night Stalkers," "The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" and "Life in Hell."