Dave Matthews explained this song to MTV News: "It's a pretty song and it talks about a lot of things... death and love and all those things... but it also talks about the world of opposites that we are in. That's the idea behind the song - that we will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save a kid's life and then we will drop bombs out of the sky on each other and blow a whole school of them to pieces without a thought. And that's a funny world." He added: "It is a joyful tune - that's what it's supposed to be. But it's also supposed to be about the truth. So that's what we wanted to do on this record... be honest with ourselves."
This was the lead single from the Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King album, DMB's first since Stand Up in 2005. In a shrewd marketing move, the song debuted as a free download on the band's website free of charge if you entered your mobile phone number. The band reported 1 million downloads, which means they captured a million phone numbers, which unlike emails, tend to stick with us forever.
In the line, "The War song is playing, why can't we be friends," Matthews is referring to the band War and their song "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
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