Songfacts®:

• Images of death permeate this state-of-the-world lament on which a sombre Dave Gahan sings, "We had so much time. How did we commit the worst crime?" Gahan told Rolling Stone that the song compliments another Spirit track "Poison Heart"
  
  "The lyrics to 'Poison Heart' are more of an internal dialogue, but 'Worst Crime' is looking outward," he explained. "It's bringing about the change. You've got to do something different or act differently. We can all talk about whatever is going on until we're blue in the face but you have to take real action, and sometimes we don't know what that looks like. Individually, I believe people are inherently good, but we're really distorted by the information we get and we act out on that information out of fear."