The songs are loosely linked by lyrics covering a general theme of post-World War II international relations and global travel.

Jackson's intent for the recording was to capture the intensity and spontaneity of a live performance, but without the distraction of noise from the crowd.

We were just playing a lot of unfamiliar material, and recording it for an album, so the audience were asked to hold it until they were sure a song was finished.

The front cover of the album (work by Serge Clerc) features the phrase "Big World" in French, Persian, Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Dutch, Korean, Thai, Russian, Irish Gaelic, Armenian, Hindi, English, Hebrew, Indonesian, Arabic, and Polish.

The back cover features the same phrase in Vietnamese, Swedish, Swiss German, Turkish, Spanish, Swahili, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Welsh, and Hungarian.