This is an unusual song in that it has no chorus, and the title appears only in the last line. Squeeze guitarist Chris Difford writes their lyrics, and he got the idea to write in this style from the 1972 Roxy Music song "Virginia Plain," as well as some of the more obscure Bob Dylan songs like "Who Killed Davey Moore?" When Difford wrote it, the song had about 16 verses.
Glenn Tilbrook, who is Squeeze's other guitarist, puts music to Difford's lyrics, and usually picks from about 20-30 sets of words. Says Tilbrook: "The lyric was a story that had no obvious repeats, and I thought it read perfectly well as it was. I was thinking of something like Dylan's 'Positively 4th Street' as a template when I wrote the music."
Chris Difford explained: "I imagined it would never be a hit and we'd have to take it off the album. And the record company said that they disagreed, and it was that second #2 record (after "Cool For Cats"), so they said if the manager was wrong he'd have to eat his heart. Not a very tasty thing to be doing."
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