Iggy told NPR,

I try to mix three things. I mix something that comes from within me, and it can also include a particular experience, a particular detail that really happened. And then I try to see if that matches up with something I think might have happened to some other people who interest me. And then … I try to include something that just an everyday person could relate to. I think the first song I ever finished, that I was able to get out on a national basis, was “1969.” Everybody knew what that was: It was the year but it was also — I figured, correctly — something about that number, that that year was going to be around for a long time. I mean you don’t hear a lot about like 1971, but you still hear 1969. That’s a powerful number. … The key is, “Another year with nothing to do, Boo-Hoo!” And, for me, that was true because of frustration; Because … I hadn’t gotten my hands on the levers of power, the means of production, that would allow me to express myself. And also I hadn’t learned an F-chord yet. But, on the other hand, I was singing for the delinquent group I belonged to, because the other guys in the group would never even think about that. They’d just go, “Awwww, there’s nothing to do.”