Songfacts®:

• Quantum Jump was founded by the producer and session musician Rupert Hine in 1975. Other members were drummer Trevor Morais, bassist John G Perry (formerly of Caravan), guitarist/violinist Geoffrey Richardson, and Washington DC born Mark Warner. This humorous number, which hinted that the Masked Man had a crush on Tonto, was their first single. It was the record of the week on the Tony Blackburn show, but the BBC stopped playing the tune once they got wind of its gay content. Three years later it was re-released and became the band's only hit. Hine went on to become a successful producer in the 1980s working for a number of artists including Tina Turner, Howard Jones, Thompson Twins and Stevie Nicks.
• This song kicks off with "taumatawhakatangihangakuayuwotamateaturipukakupikimaungahoronukupokaiawhenuakatanatahumatakuatanganuakawamiki-tora." The song's first word was chosen after a record label suggestion that the tune was a potential hit single if it had something more catchier for the intro. Turning to a copy of The Guinness Book of World Records, Hine found the world's longest word, a Māori name for a New Zealand mountain, and sang it in a way to make it sound Native American.
• Richardson said of the song's lyrical content to Q magazine September 2009: "It was pothead stuff, the idea that The Lone Ranger and Tonto smoked joints. They rode the range stoned out of their heads. Occasionally Tonto wonders about being alone with the Lone Ranger. It was a wacky time."