Page "Two Tribes" Paragraph 7

The single was released at the height of the Cold War, when general fears about global nuclear warfare were at a peak.

Although Johnson would attest in a 1984 radio interview that the " two tribes " of the song potentially represented any pair of warring adversaries ( giving the examples of " cowboys and Indians or Captain Kirk and Klingons "), the song does contain the line " On the air America / I modelled shirts by Van Heusen ", a clear reference to then US President Ronald Reagan, who had advertised for Phillips Van Heusen in 1953 ( briefly reviving the association in the early 1980s ), and whose first film had been titled Love Is On The Air.