The song's lyrics were written after Elliott and Lange went to opposite ends of the studio control room and delivered stream-of-consciousness words into a pair of dictaphones while the song's backing track played. They then swapped dictaphones and tried to determine what each other's words were. In the "Hysteria" episode of the "Classic Albums" documentary series, Elliott said he thought he heard the phrase "love is like a bomb" on Lange's tape "and that set the whole tone for the lyric."