Songfacts®:

• OMD's Andy McCluskey told The Guardian March 7, 2008 about this song, which as the title suggests, is about genetic engineering: "I was very positive about the subject! I didn't expect someone like (multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation) Monsanto to come along and say, 'F--k it, we can make money out of cross-pollination.'" He added, "People didn't listen to the lyrics. I think they automatically assumed it would be anti. Generally, I was pretty dark and pessimistic. Very precious and strong-minded."
• After the commercial success of OMD's Architecture and Morality album, which included their smash hit "Joan of Arc" and "Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc)," this first release from its follow-up album Dazzle Ships was too difficult for many and flopped, selling 300,000 compared to Architecture and Morality's 3 million. McCluskey told The Guardian: "It all made sense to us. We wanted to be Abba and Stockhausen. The machinery, bones and humanity were juxtaposed." He added: "I was the ideas man, Paul Humphreys made it happen. It was a symbiotic relationship. But I'm the one who took us right to the edge of the plank. When people heard Dazzle Ships, they obviously preferred our music with the sweet wrapper on. Not a song about someone's hand being cut off by a totalitarian regime. After that, there was a conscious and unconscious reeling-in of our experimental side. We got more conservative."
• OMD's producer Rhett Davies warned them that on "Genetic Engineering" the big bass drum was really loud and really deep, and they might want to tone it down, as it was very similar to the bass drum they had on "Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc)." They ignored his advice.
  
  "The first time we heard 'Genetic Engineering' on the radio, when this drum came in, with the compressors on commercial radio, basically the song disappeared," McCluskey recalled to Uncut magazine. "We were like, 'Oh, he was right! Oops!'"
  
  The duo realized something was wrong and the single stalled at a disappointing #20 in the UK. The follow up, "Telegraph," failed to reach the Top 40 at all.