From: yessng@aol.com (Yessng)

This is an excerpt from an interview between Jon and  Ed Sciaky 
on Oct.  25, 1996: 

Jon:  [Chris] was writing this amazing bass line, and I started singing
this sort of stuff on top of it, and later on when I looked at what I was
trying to sing, I realized I was singing about gang life and basically any
kind of gang life [that] creates warfare, whether it's in Bosnia or L.A.
or Northern Ireland. The people that suffer are the children. If you
remember, you read every now and again about crossfire and some kid gets
killed when the gangs are trying to fight for their territory. It's like
war.  It's war out there, and all of a sudden I'm singing about this stuff
now. My gosh, what am I singing about? But that's what it came out as, you
know?
Ed: And crack babies, isn't that part of it?
Jon: One of the girls is on crack, and it just finishes up that she takes
out this kid in the middle of the night trying to get some more crack and
of course this car comes screaming around the corner and there's a
gangland shootout and the child gets killed. And you think, that's the
innocence of us. That's how we really shoot our innocence in a way within,
that acceptance of gang life, and acceptance of warlike tendencies,
whether it's a small band of people in Philly or L.A. or New York or Rio.
Because it happens all over the world, believe me ... London ... and then
you have your major gang events which is your warlike tendencies in Bosnia
and Northern Ireland.