The song, like many on The Boatman's Call, seems to reflect on Nick Cave's personal relationships and spiritual yearnings at the time of writing.

This song in particular is widely speculated to either be a love song or directed at either the mother of Cave's son Luke, Viviane Carneiro, or PJ Harvey, with whom Cave had a brief relationship prior to the album's recording and release.

[citation needed] A line from the song that states, "there's a man who spoke wonders / I've never met him / he said, 'he who seeks finds and who knocks will be let in'", which is an indirect quotation of Matthew 7:8[1] from The Bible.

The video features the band performing the song in a small church hall.

A version in Swedish, (Är du) den som jag har väntat på?