During the Vietnam War, a daily press briefing occurred in Saigon that was sponsored by the United States Public Affairs Office in the Rex Hotel. The term, “Five o’clock Follies,” was the derogatory term given to these military press briefings. These briefings by military officials released accounts of the war on air and in the battlefield that farcically assured the American people that the United States had a firm hold the war and on communism.

Richard Pyle, Associated Press Saigon bureau chief during the war, described the briefings as, “the longest-playing tragicomedy in Southeast Asia’s theater of the absurd.”

During the briefings, journalists alternately cracked cynical jokes and shouted at officials, often complaining about a Credibility gap between official reports and the truth. Public affairs officer Barry Zorthian led the briefings, and he once lamented that where the US government’s word was once true until proven false, in Vietnam it would be questioned until proven true. See here for more info on the Five O'Clock Follies.

In this song, Mikah 9 is exploring the information gap and the government’s tendencies for obscuring the truth, as well as some of the atrocities he believes the government has intentionally committed and then publicly lied about. Mikah is distrusting of the government, angry with the way things are going, and dreaming of making a change. He’s also urging everyone to be critical of the information they receive from the government and the media.