Songfacts®:

• REO Speedwagon started performing "Whipping Boy" on tour in 2014. "It's a song about our belief that people have a natural desire to be treated as equals," lead singer Kevin Cronin said in a Songfacts interview. "Every human being wants that, and if someone isn't being treated that way, they will do what it takes to gain that equality for themselves - it's been shown throughout history.
  
  I feel like it's true in society, it's true in personal relationships. It's one of those things that is just real, and that's really what the song is about: Nobody wants to be anybody else's whipping boy."
• According to Cronin, the song goes over well live, as the entire band gets featured spots. "It's just a fun song to play and there's this chant thing that happens that the audience responds to," he said. "You can see how that would invigorate the whole set. When you're playing something new and you're playing a couple of songs you haven't played in a long time, that energy is contagious and it infects the songs that you play every night. It brings the energy level of the whole concert up, so it's pretty cool."