The photograph on the front cover of the single was taken from the Thammasat University massacre in Thailand, depicting a crowd member beating the hanged corpse of a student protester with a metal chair.

The song was written shortly after the genocidal dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, which is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of roughly a quarter of the Cambodian population between 1975 and 1979.

In October 1998, Jello Biafra was sued by three former members of Dead Kennedys, who claimed that they had been defrauded of royalties owed to them.

[3] "The record industry has been skimming royalties owed artists since the beginning," according to Dead Kennedys' guitarist East Bay Ray.

[3][4] Biafra lost the lawsuit and, as the owner of Alternative Tentacles, was ordered to pay $200,000 in damages to the other band members.