[5] Participating musicians include tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Johnny Coles (on flugelhorn), trombonist Garnett Brown, flautist Hubert Laws, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath.

Hancock praised flute player Laws, suggesting that he was one of the finest flautists in classical or jazz music.

Like his ambitious Speak Like a Child, The Prisoner purports to stand as a "social statement written in music".

"Firewater" represents 'the social duality of the oppressor and the oppressed: the fire symbolises the heat in violence and (abuse of) power, whilst the feeling of water recalls Martin Luther King.

(Disappointingly, perhaps, given the ambitions Herbie seems to have expressed for the tune, an early arrangement was used as the musical theme for a Silva Thins cigarette TV commercial.)