Songfacts®:

• Anohni had hoped President Barack Obama's election would mean improved civil rights. She expresses her disappointment and anger here at the increased usage of drone warfare and the killing of Bin Laden during his presidency.
  
  Now the news is you are spying
  Executing without trial
  Betraying virtues
  Scarring closed the sky
  
  Anohni told The Guardian: "We desperately hoped he'd manifest the heroic vision that might change America's course. And how many weeks into office did he sign his first kill list? Even the Nazis had Nuremberg: they had a day in court before they were executed. Bin Laden was executed in his bedroom, and a country celebrated in bloodlust."
• Anohni expanded on the track's meaning to Mojo: "The song 'Obama' is addressing how naive it seems in retrospect that I put so much infantile hope in him as the one man to save us from decades of misguided policy," he said. "If we really want change it's going to probably require a much more vivid participation of a much greater number of us."