I wrote it specifically as a single. It turned out differently to how I'd envisaged it due to Nick Garvey's production. I wanted it to have a bit of a Euro-pop feel but Nick Garvey was more extreme in that direction - I would have been a bit more subtle about it. Which wouldn't neccesarilly have been a good thing.
When Gary Numan reviewed it on Round Table on Wonderful Radio One he made a disparaging remark about it sounding like a Butlins Holiday camp. He was absolutely right, and I took it as a compliment even though I was offended at the time. I briefly met Gary sometime afterwards at a TV show in Munich. I don't know if he was drunk too. It was quite funny. I'd like to meet him again - I'm sure we'd get on well.
Nick Garvey was possibly the most patronising human being I'd ever met. I don't think he meant to be - it was probably a mixture of a public school background and the way Stiff Records perceived me brushing off on him.
We made a demo at Nick's house with a tape loop of a drum beat. In fact Nick made the demo all by himself, I just sang on it.
We did the backing track at Phonogram Studios. Nick brought Andy McMasters with him. Andy was the keyboard player in the Motors who'd just had a hit with Airport. He drank a bottle of wine, fell asleep and woke up when we'd finished. Nick sent my band home one by one except for Dave Otway on the drums and Malcolm Morley who played acoustic rhythm guitar using a capo made from a pencil and a rubber band.
Nick played the bass himself and the three of them did the backing track by playing along with the original tape looped drums in the headphones. After that it was just me and Nick in the Roundhouse Studio. Nick set about overdubbing a cheap Crumar Insta-Piano over and over to get the instrumental at the front. He tracked it with a Rickenbacker through a fuzz box too. He wanted Billy Bremner from Rockpile to play a kind of rockabilly guitar part on the last verse but he asked Jake Riviera on a bad day and Jake said no. He was probably stuck in patronising mode due to too much contact with me.
'It'd be really good if there was a harmony vocal on the third verse', he said, 'but you probably can't sing harmonies so we'll just have to do without.'
I insisted that I could even though I'd never sung a harmony in my life. He looked doubtful but I went and did it and got it right first time. And that's how I figured out harmonies - it was just singing along with a different tune that still fitted. Quite easy really. Nick looked surprised.
'Actually that was quite good,' he said.