So does execution of the intent, and in this case, if the band endeavored to do something that did not include giving racists a rallying point, they fucked up hugely. Because that is what the song is perceived as and what it has become. If they didn’t mean it to be that, they sure picked a bad way of going about it IMO.
In a similar vein, I was reading somewhere recently about Martina McBride’s “Independence Day” which was taken by many (including Hannity and Sarah Palin) to be some sort of patriotic anthem, when it’s actually about a physically abused woman who burns her house down with her abusive husband in it. Even more bizarre than the whole “Born in the USA” misread.