As with "Sunday Bloody Sunday", the song is about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The single cover for this song features the pictures of four Northern Irish politicians — Gerry Adams, David Trimble, Ian Paisley, and John Hume (clockwise from top left).

Two months before the release of the single, live versions of "Please" and three other songs from the PopMart Tour were released on the Please: PopHeart Live EP in September 1997.

This song was played live during every performance of the PopMart Tour, with an outro similar to the drumbeat to that of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Each performance segued directly into "Where the Streets Have No Name." During the Elevation Tour, the song was initially played in electric form before being played acoustically by Bono and the Edge at about 20 different shows. The song has not been played in full since the final show of the Elevation Tour. However, it was frequently sampled along with "The Hands That Built America" during "Bullet the Blue Sky" on the Vertigo Tour. It was later sampled in the outro of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" on the U2 360° Tour to lead into the beginning of fellow Northern Ireland Troubles song "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

...
Wikipedia