Songfacts®:

• The band got the idea for this song when they were traveling in Japan in the early '70s. War drummer Harold Brown told Songfacts: "We're all connected by language, and by our food, and by our culture. Most racists don't know why they're racist. But you pick them up and take them over and drop them in a country, like India or Pakistan, guess what? 'Why can't we be friends?' Because all of a sudden you find out we're more alike inside than we are on the outside. We started realizing that that's really important. You travel all over the world, you can't speak a lot of their language. But one thing they do know, they know your body language, how you may react."
• Each verse was sung by a different member of the band, with Brown singing the first. The line, "I may not speak right, but I know what I'm talking about," is harmonica player Lee Oskar, who is from Denmark and was just learning how to speak English.
• This song makes a statement about the absurdity of judging others based on our differences. War started out in the early '60s as a black band called The Creators, and they managed to break down barriers, becoming the first black band to be booked on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. As they evolved into War and went through member changes over the years, the band integrated, often playing with white musicians like Eric Burdon, who was their lead singer for two albums.
  
  Harold Brown explains his philosophy: "I like exemplary people around me. I don't judge you by your name, your color, or your money. I judge you by whether or not you're an exemplary person. Because if I know you're an exemplary person, and I want you to move this equipment from here to there, or you're building a house or you're shining shoes or stuff, then I know you're gonna do it the best you know how. That's the bottom line. See, that's where people keep falling off of America here, because we get inferior people in positions they have no business being in."
• War recorded this at Crystal Studios in Hollywood, where artists like Stevie Wonder and The Fabulous Thunderbirds would also record.
• The band name ties into this song. Harold Brown told Songfacts: "We Are Righteous, that's what War stood for. It was trying to bring everybody together through our music."
• In 2005, XM Satellite Radio used this in commercials to promote their Major League Baseball broadcasts. The idea was that fans of different teams could still get along as long as they could listen to the games anywhere an XM radio could be found.
• Four of the five original surviving members of War formed the Lowrider Band after losing the name in the mid-1990s to Far Out Productions (producer and songwriter Jerry Goldstein), who allows original keyboardist Lonnie Jordan to use the name. Brown harbors no ill will toward Jordan, and feels that "ultimately, natural justice will prevail."
• Smash Mouth covered this on their first CD, Fush Yu Mang.
• The original video for this song features a cast of multiracial, multi-occupational, multicultural earthlings. One segment features a man parachuting in on a couple celebrating their love. He brings them a bottle of wine and pours it into their glasses. Look closely at the woman's ring. It is not on her left hand, she is holding the glass with her right hand. The man might be married, as his ring is on his wedding ring finger on his left hand, but it is not clear if he is married to the woman or if the woman is married at all.
• This song shows up in many movies, often to lighten the mood during scenes with some comedic tension. One example is Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), where two frenemies come together for a common cause (and lots of mayhem). Other films to use the song include:
  
  Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
  College Road Trip (2008)
  Semi-Pro (2008)
  The Nanny Diaries (2007)
  Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
  Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)
  Mr. 3000 (2004)
  Welcome to Mooseport (2004)
  Cheats (2002)
  The Mexican (2001)
  BASEketball (1998)
  Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
  Wild Things (1998)
  Dazed and Confused (1993)
• The Muppets performed this in a 1979 episode (the one with John Denver as the guest star) in a bit where various Muppets sing it on a battlefield as they blow each other up. We see Frenchmen, Romans, Native Americans, hillbillies, and even Germans doing some trench warfare while asking the musical question, "why can't we be friends." It's quite a profound statement, and not without precedent: in 1914, World War I soldiers on both sides called a truce and became friends until officers ordered them to start shooting each other again.