This song is about the AIDS epidemic, which was still widely misunderstood. In our interview with Overkill lead singer Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth , he explained: "When the band had started in the early '80s, AIDS was 'the gay cancer.' But by '89, people had a better view of it: it wasn't a gay disease, it was a human disease. The idea behind 'Elimination' was to say, 'This is about us, it's not about you or about you, it's about us collectively.'"