[2] Like many of the songs from "Circus Animals" that were deliberately written to be as different in style as possible from those on the pop-laced East that had preceded it, "When the War is Over" has a distinctly odd structure.

It also deviates from traditional songwriting by featuring the instrumental break and guitar solo between the first and second verse, instead of the more usual arrangement between the second and third.

Guitarist Ian Moss sings lead vocal on the first two verses, with the band's regular lead vocalist Jimmy Barnes singing the third, which rises to a crescendo before returning to the quiet, melodic refrain from the beginning of the song, underlined by more soloing from Moss.

Former Australian Idol contestant Cosima De Vito released a version of the song as a double A-side with the track "One Night Without You" on 9 August 2004.

De Vito's version presented an acoustic-guitar and string driven theme as opposed to the strong guitar and drums of the original.

British hard rock band Uriah Heep recorded a version of the song for their seventeenth studio album Raging Silence.