"Sweet Bird of Truth" is about the USA's military involvement in Middle East politics. Johnson said, "The idea of that single was to provide a musical interpretation of the sort of cultural conflict that occurs when the ultimate Western power takes on the sort of Eastern fundamentalism that you'll find in the Arab nations." Johnson wanted to release "Sweet Bird of Truth" as the album's first single in April 1986, but this coincided with the US bombing of Libya, and with the song's lyrics critical of US military involvement in the Middle East, CBS were unwilling to release and promote the single. In the end it was released as a low-key limited edition single and deleted on the day of release. Johnson said, "The day I went in to tell them I wanted to release the single, they'd just been told by Special Branch to take their American flags down, since, as an American multi-national, they were a possible target for Libyan bombing. So I prepared a statement for the press, but apparently the [UK national daily newspapers] were told not to print it, because they could then be held responsible if CBS were bombed."