Singer Jimmy Barnes said of the writing process: "Don Walker used to write great songs, but he'd take months and months, and you wouldn't know about them until he'd turn up that day and say, 'Let's learn it.' I remember we were doing a gig somewhere, it might have been in Melbourne, and Don walked in and said, 'I've got this song. Let's do it tonight. It's really easy.' And it really was easy for them, because there are not many chords, but for me it's like a novel. I had to learn all the words that day." Walker said, "I originally wrote it as a punk song, but we found it worked better with a country-rock approach."