Songfacts®:

• This song was the second single from the Bangles' debut album, All Over The Place, following "Hero Takes A Fall." The tune didn't originally chart in the UK, but after being re-released in the light of the success of "Manic Monday," it reached a not-so-manic #56.
• Kimberley Rew wrote the song and released the original version with his band The Waves in 1982. A year later, that band became Katrina & the Waves when Katrina Leskanich joined as lead singer, and they included another version of the song on their 1983 album Walking On Sunshine. The song was rather obscure, issued both times on small labels with limited release (the band broke out in 1985 when the song "Walking On Sunshine" was re-released).
  
  How did the Bangles come across the song? Their guitarist Vicki Peterson explained to Melody Maker: "Michael [Steele, bass] and I shared a house, and our roommate was listening to a tape sent to her by a friend of ours who lives in San Francisco. This tape happened to have a song by a band called Katrina & the Waves on it, a demo version with Kimberley Rew singing the lead vocal, 'Going Down To Liverpool.' Michael and I were standing in the bathroom putting on make-up or something..."
  
  She added: "It was great, the beat, the feeling of it, something about the guitars sounded like us. We were trying to think of a couple more numbers to put on the album, and we had some songs of our own and a couple of covers, but we decided it would be nice to do a more current cover. And it was just three chords, real basic."
• The song makes various oblique observations on unemployment – the UB40 it refers to was Unemployment Benefit form 40, a document in the 1980s issued to people in the UK claiming unemployment benefit. Peterson commented to Melody Maker: "There are several ways you can look at it. He is making a statement – 'UB40 in my hand'. It's very sort of sarcastic, thrown away. 'Going down to Liverpool to do nothing all the days of my life...' It's very offhandedly done, it's not like a heavy-handed political statement. It's something that we were comfortable with."
• Tamar Simon Hoffs, the mother of Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs, directed the music video. She also shot the band's clip for "If She Knew What She Wants." In the visual, Leonard "Spock" Nimoy plays the part of The Bangles' chauffeur. Susanna Hoffs explained to Mojo magazine: "Leonard Nimroy is like an old friend of my family's from way back. We were sitting around and we had this concept of the Bangles sitting in this mystery car being driven to Liverpool or whatever, right? And who's gonna drive that car? It just occurred to me, Leonard Nimoy would be great, so I've phoned him up and I thought, 'Oh gosh, is Leonard gonna wanna do it, but he said yes!"