Wait- OMG! The song is really about...?

I study nuclear science
I love my classes
I got a crazy teacher, he wears dark glasses

Pat revealed on VH1’s 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s that the meaning of the song was widely misinterpreted as a positive perspective in regard to the near future. Pat somewhat clarified the meaning by stating that it was, contrary to popular belief, a "grim" outlook. While not saying so directly, he hinted at the idea that the bright future was in fact due to impending nuclear holocaust. The "job waiting" after graduation signified the demand for nuclear scientists to facilitate such events. Pat drew upon the multitude of past predictions which transcend several cultures that foreshadow the world ending in the 1980s, along with the nuclear tension at the height of the Cold Warto compile the song.

• Whitlock: "I was living at The Plantation in the valley - you remember the shootout at The Plantation in the Leon Russell song. I was living there with Indian Head Davis and Chuck Blackwell and Jimmy Constantine - there were about 13 of us in this house in Sherman Oaks in the valley. I had a little dog and a little cat. One guy told me to get rid of my dog and cat because there wasn't room. I took my cat out to Delaney's house in Hawthorn, and when I got back my little dog was gone. This one guy in the house had taken my dog and done away with it. That was my only friend - this was the first time I had been anywhere outside of Macon, Georgia or the Memphis area. All of this was new to me, and I have an animal thing. I wanted to punch him out, and I thought, 'No, you can't do that,' so I went to my bedroom and sat down. I was thinking about a snake in the grass and some other ideas and I thought, 'He's the thorn tree in my garden.' I had this beautiful garden built in my consciousness where I was safe and secure with my little dog and my cat, and there's this thorn tree - that would be the guy who had my little dog put away. I wrote the song and it just came out of me. I hadn't even put it on paper, and I went out of my bedroom and knocked on his door. I said, 'Come here, I want to play you something.' We sat down at the table in the kitchen and I played him that song. He said, 'Wow, Bobby, that's beautiful.' I said, 'You're the thorn tree. There's going to come a day when I have the opportunity to record this song, and the whole world will know about it. You'll know what you did to me for the rest of your life.' I didn't realize it was going to go on the end of one of the biggest-selling records of all time. That was the furthest thing from my mind."