This was the last album with the group for both founder Marty Balin and drummer Spencer Dryden (although they did both appear on the June 1970 single "Mexico" and its B-side "Have You Seen the Saucers?

Guest musicians included Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar, veteran session pianist Nicky Hopkins, future Airplane drummer Joey Covington on percussion, David Crosby and Stephen Stills.

[5] The sessions were held late at night, with Heider's assistant Ginger Muse noting that "they'd start drifting in around six in the evening when I was leaving, and they'd still be there when I came in at nine the next morning", with the janitor often having to vacuum around Grace sleeping on the studio couch.

[6] The album was marked by strong anti-war and pro-anarchism messages, particularly in the opening "We Can Be Together" (with provocative lines like "we are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent...and young") and the joint Crosby/Kantner/Stills composition "Wooden Ships" which describes the struggle for survival in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

[7] The title track was inspired by a Volunteers of America (a religious charity similar to the Salvation Army) truck that woke singer Marty Balin one morning, which he and Kantner repurposed into a revolutionary anthem using the same strident riff as "We Can Be Together".

Gentler hippie themes of nature, communities and ecology are explored in Kantner's "The Farm" and Slick's "Eskimo Blue Day", while "Hey Fredrick" mixes blatantly sexual imagery with what Grace called an admission that "I'm flying so high that I know I'm going to burn my wings on the sun if I don't slow down".

[6] Meanwhile, Dryden's "A Song for All Seasons" mocked contentious relations within the group, including a swipe at original manager Matthew Katz who it describes "skipped town with all your pay.

"[3] Musically, the album is characterized by Jorma Kaukonen's expansive lead guitar parts on "Wooden Ships", his dueling solos on the lengthy jam section of "Hey Fredrick", and use of feedback on his cover of the traditional gospel-blues song "Good Shepherd".

Tracks like "We Can Be Together", "Hey Fredrick" and "Eskimo Blue Day" are lengthy, multi-sectional compositions approaching the style of progressive rock, while others including "A Song for All Seasons", "Turn My Life Down" and "Volunteers" are shorter and more direct.

Session player Nicky Hopkins provided his distinctive piano style to a number of tracks, as he did on albums by Quicksilver Messenger Service and Steve Miller Band that same year, and guested at the Airplane's set at Woodstock.

[3] The front cover art featured a shot of the band in costume for the filming of a promotional video for "Martha" in October 1967, which was aired on the Perry Como Holiday Special later that year.