As Dave Thompson has pointed out, the song was "punningly political at a time when Iran itself was making headlines around the clock". The song and the band were an "irresistible" package for American audiences, and by the summer of 1982, "America was clutching "sic" Flock of Seagulls to its heart". According to Maz Jobrani, the release of the song was a "disaster" for Iranian-American children like himself. They were cruelly teased by other American children with the song's misheard chorus: "I-ran, I-ran so far away."