The song is an affirmation of a breakup, with one half of the ex-couple using "when pigs fly"-type hyperboles – including the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, San Diego sailors not getting tattooed, the wind not blowing in Chicago (opposing the city's nickname "The Windy City"), L.A. being cold and clear (opposing the city's warm climate and smog), winter weather for the Fourth of July, and so forth – to impress upon the other half that they should not expect to reunite as a couple.
Several cultural references are made, including infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (though the song was released years before her tragic and untimely death, in any event she could never have been ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, as the office is reserved for men), and Wrigley Field (when the lights go on), which, at the time of the recording, was the only unlighted field in Major League Baseball. On the Statlers' live 1989 album Live-Sold Out, on which they performed the song, the lyric referring to Wrigley Field was revised as putting a dome on the ballpark (as lights for night games had been installed in the ballpark in 1988, since the song's studio recording).
