In a 2004 interview with Harp Magazine, Waits seemed to acknowledge that the song is a protest song inspired by the Iraq War:

“I hate to sound cynical, but it seems to me that protest songs are like throwing peanuts at a gorilla. It’s hard to believe that a song like that is gonna make any difference in the course we’re on. But at the same time, that Pete Seeger song about the ‘Big Muddy’(8) became more than a song. I don’t want to contribute to the rhetoric, or even assume I have the ability to speak about these things on an intelligent level. I know my own limitations… I can sound like I know a lot about something for five minutes. Don’t stay too long, or I slide into idiot. But I also know that everybody feels like we’re going 90 miles an hour down a dead-end street, and we didn’t make that feeling up.”