The subject of the lyric was the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Kevin Carter who was awarded for his photograph "the vulture and the little girl", taken in what is now South Sudan. Carter also photographed murders by necklacing in South Africa in the mid-1980s. He later went on to say, "The question that still haunts me is 'would those people have been necklaced if there was no media coverage?'" Carter was always troubled by the balance of his professional responsibilities with moral considerations. He committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg at the age of 33. His pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child, and a note left on the passenger seat read: "The pain of life overrides joy to the point that joy no longer exists."