Songfacts®:

• This is the closing track from the Goo Goo Dolls' ninth studio album, Something For The Rest Of Us. According to lead singer Johnny Rzeznik, the band wanted to address the issues Americans had to face during the country's economic downturn. While Rzeznik connects with the tune on a personal level, the song is also about the individual battles people face.
  
  He told American Songwriter: "'Soldier,' to me, my interpretation of it, I sort of used that as a metaphor for alcoholism. My father was a big alcoholic and, you know, we've all had our own personal struggles with it. That's why in a sort of an oblique way, I use the term 'soldier' as kind of a metaphor for the battle that you're fighting every day. It could be the battle that men and women all over this country are fighting every day trying to find a job, trying to keep their homes, trying to keep their families together. I have friends who have lost their homes, and it's pretty devastating. They lose their jobs; they lose their home and it affects the family. Everyone desires food, shelter and some security. They're willing to work for it, to give up everything for it, and then to have it all snatched away from them by a bunch of greedy bankers playing tricks on Wall Street - that's intense. I’m surprised that there hasn't been more public outrage about it."
• The album sold twice as many copies (112,000) as its predecessor, Let Love In, but increased pressure from the record label soured the recording experience, which led Rzeznik to regard Something For The Rest Of Us as his least favorite Goo album. "That whole situation was a black cloud," he told Noisey in 2015.