Song meaning
Greg's answer to a guy who proposed selectively killing those that destroy the rainforests, etc: "I can appreciate your disgust with people who terrorize the rainforests and other ecosystems, I too am angered by it. But killing key people will not reverse the course of mankind. In fact, killing each other is the very same destructive instinct that we have to get away from if we can ever hope to preserve our ecosystems. Changing political policies, or ousting bad leaders is only a temporary, unsatisfying fix, not the fundamental kind of change that we need... 'what we do need is a change of ideas'".
The inspiration for Change Of Ideas and other songs from No Control came from Graffin entering graduate school. This song is "a song about the shifting of one's worldview based on learning, based on knowledge and based on taking in what you see in the world."
Hetson in 1994: "There's a lot of opportunities for those who want to change something, to bring new ideas about. I think though that fear of change is still deeply rooted in aged folks: given that those in power are not youths, control on young people's activities will persist, and true freedom, authentic independence will be impossible to reach".