According to Cockburn, the song was inspired by seeing teenagers expressing romantic love in a schoolyard. In the song, he contrasts the hopefulness and joy of new love with the despair of a wider Cold War world where notions of the future often carried a sense of foreboding and doom. However, especially in light of Cockburn's next single "If I Had A Rocket Launcher", the song has also been interpreted by listeners and critics as referring to the same Guatemalan refugee crisis that inspired the later song, or to the then-emerging HIV/AIDS crisis. Cockburn stated in later interviews that he was pleased by both of these alternate interpretations.

Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Wikipedia