Four total singles were released for Liquid Swords. The first of which was "I Gotcha Back," released August 22, 1994. Similar to Raekwon's single "Heaven & Hell," the song first appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Fresh, and was the first song written for the album. Describing the song's background and theme, GZA later stated "This was a short rhyme I wrote for one of my nephews. When I said, “My lifestyle so far from well, could’ve wrote a book called Age Twelve and Going Through Hell.” It’s for my nephew who was twelve at the time, and whose father, my brother, had been locked up since ‘88. So he wasn’t around for my nephew when times were rough, so I wanted to up my nephew a bit with this track. I had two nephews in the video, they were both real young at the time. And in video, they both had met up and shots rang out from some young gangsters. It’s a shame because both those kids in the video, both nephews of mine, ended up getting in trouble for ringing out shots and are both doing time right now. It’s kind of ironic. One of my nephews ended up getting eights years for that. So the whole song is a sad irony to me now." - Wax Poetics