Survivor Guilt

This song was inspired by the film adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22 and features dialogue from one of the movie's central scenes, where Art Garfunkel's character argues with an Italian solider about America's military importance. Frontman Tim McIlrath explained to Spin magazine: "Garfunkel says to him, 'How can Italy be powerful when they were occupied by Nazi Germany?' and the soldier just sort of laughs at his stupidity and tells him, 'Well, we're still here — where are those people who occupied us? They lost.' It's this interesting anti-war statement and you can just see it blowing the soldier's mind."