The song was inspired by Cockburn's visit, sponsored by Oxfam, to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico following the counterinsurgency campaign of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.

In the song, Cockburn despairs of waiting for a political solution to the crisis, and expresses the desire to take matters into his own hands.

The fourth and final verse ends with the song's most famous and controversial lyric: "If I had a rocket launcher, some son-of-a-bitch would die".

"[1] In 2009, Cockburn performed the song for Canadian troops in Afghanistan; he was subsequently presented (temporarily) with a rocket launcher.

Following their album Rattle and Hum, U2 reportedly rehearsed the song a number of times with the intention to record a cover, although this never materialized.