The single sold over one million copies, won a BMI Award, and was the most-played song on college radio in 1991.

[5][6] Mike Edwards has said that some of the lyrics were influenced by the band's experiences playing in Romania in February 1990 shortly after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

[7] The lyrics were also inspired by the 1987 Prince song "Sign o' the Times" and a 1989 cover version of it by Simple Minds, which the members of Jesus Jones had first heard during television coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The list's author John J. Miller explained, "The words are vague, but they’re also about the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War.

A cover version was recorded by New Zealand band the Feelers and released as a single in 2010 and on the album Hope Nature Forgives.