Sha La La La Lee - Mono Version

In his autobiography Mr Big, which he co-wrote with Mick Wall, Small Faces manager Don Arden said their follow up single to "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?" was "another song hand-picked by me. This time though it was something I'd commissioned specifically for them." Arden said he wanted something like "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" which was #1 for Manfred Mann at the time, "so I paid a pal of mine, Kenny Lynch, to come up with some similar-sounding lyrics." Lynch was probably better known as a comedian at that time, but was also a songwriter and a performer in his own right. Arden said that once he had the title and the chorus, he gave it to Mort Shuman who finished it, but when he took it to the group, they hated it even more than their previous release. "But I knew it would be big for them and so I forced it down their throats." His judgment was right, and the song hit #3 in the UK. Running 2:56 seconds, it was released on Decca backed by "Grow Your Own."

According to the Making Time site, there was some confusion over the falsetto parts on the song's chorus. Some of the band thought Lynch had provided them and felt the songwriter was competing with frontman Steve Marriott for dominance in the vocal department. However, bass player Ronnie Lane claimed at the time that it was actually him and not Lynch who sang the falsetto vocals.

Kenney Jones recalled to Uncut magazine: "We recorded this at the Decca studios in West Hampstead. I was getting into the song and Kenny Lynch came over the tannoy: 'Don't play anything you can't mime too!"