Songfacts®:

• The lead single from The Righteous & the Butterfly, this was the first Mushroomhead song featuring vocalist J-Mann since he left the band in 2004.
  
  "That's got a real kind of 'circus vibe' to it," he said in our interview. "As far as the lyrics go, it's a commentary on the state of the country as far as the way Big Brother's clamping down. We've turned war into profit and false patriotism."
• The song came about just after guitarist Church and bassist Dr. F first joined the band in February 2012. Dr. F told Loudwire: "Right around then, we were rehearsing for the annual 'old-school' show in Cleveland and our heads were full of nothing but Mushroomhead's early catalog. It just so happened that we were in the pre-production stages of writing for a new album as well."
  
  "The influence of the early 'Shroom period is very evident in 'Qwerty' as it was inspired by songs like 'Simpleton,' 'Ego-Trip' and '43,' just to name a few," the bassist added.
  
  "We wanted to fuse together the fun, dark keyboard driven sounds of the old-school with a raw, heavy modern twist," Dr F concluded. "We feel as though we've accomplished this and couldn't be more excited that it became the first single!"
• Want some QWERTY history? In 1868 the journalist Christopher L Sholes of the Milwaukee News received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer." However, the alphabetical layout of this first typewriter meant common letters in close proximity frequently jammed at high typing speeds. To minimise such clashing, Sholes conceived the four-rowed QWERTY layout, which remains on keyboards to this day.
• Vocalist Jeffrey Nothing explained the song's meaning to AntiMusic: "I believe it is kind of saying: 'All for one, one for all." No matter what the rank, those whom actually fight the wars are very much the common man. Brothers in Arms if you will."
  
  "Yet the reasons these conflicts are carried out in the first place, for the most part, come from a much higher place," Nothing continued. "The numbers lost due to any of these catastrophes can be staggering and yet Peace can seem a flat out myth."
  
  For all of our conceived differences we are very much the same, with the same aspirations and dreams," he added. "In brutal reality, we can be called upon at anytime. Puppets and pawns, an endless supply, for sadistic schemes. War is and will always be, idiocy reigning supreme."