Songfacts®:

• Brown wrote this song about his heroes. Clash Magazine asked him who his heroes are. The former Stone Roses lead singer replied: "I don't know, like anyone who puts themselves out for humanity over and above themselves like (Muhammad) Ali, like they way that he done it on behalf of his people hasn't he. You can see when he comes out the ring and he's like preaching and all that and Bruce Lee in the Chinatown... he's deep, it's mystical... and Marley too, to the people he brought it all. The system that took god off everybody and he gave it back. He was like a prophet. Martin Luther King, you know he knew he was going to die, he knew they were going to shoot him and he knew where to stand up and do the right thing and say the right thing. He had premonitions of his own death, he knew he was going to die, he had his own kids, but he still stood up and did the right thing. Malcolm X too, you know, the way that black folks were living in America in the '60's, Malcolm X stood up and said, this is wrong. We've got to empower ourselves. So anyone who stands up against the system and the people who put others before themselves, like that famous Marley quote where he says, 'My life's for the people,' and it's massive."