Songfacts®:

• By 1982 the subversive sounds the flower-power '60s had faded from San Francisco, but a few bands were coming on strong with an exciting and artistic New Wave sound. One of them was Romeo Void, formed by art school students Frank Zincavage and Debora Iyall in 1979. He put down some often funky grooves, she wrote abstract lyrics with a sensual zing, and saxophone player Benjamin Bossi kept it lively. In a Songfacts interview with the band, Zincavage explained how "Undercover Kept" came together.
  
  "This was a tune that was created by the band jamming at tour soundchecks," he said. "Then we worked on it at rehearsals and finessed it some more during its recording at Synchro Sound Studio in Boston. It was geared towards the dance floor, especially evident in the distinct snare sound. Sometimes the band would find itself grooving on a section and decide to make that the main element of the tune.
  
  Debora was commenting on a variety of things: her friends in San Francisco that were dancers at the 'X-Rated' clubs on Broadway, undercover detective activity, and of course, relationships. This was always a fun song to play live as it allowed Benjamin a lot of freedom to improvise."
• This song is part of Romeo Void's second album, Benefactor, which includes "Never Say Never." That song had a video that got them on MTV and earned them fans far outside of San Francisco. They had high hopes for their next album, Instincts, when it was released in 1984, and it got off to a good start when "A Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing)" became a chart hit. But it wasn't good enough for their label, Columbia Records, which dropped them in the middle of a tour. They soldiered on but broke up in 1985, leaving their mark as a Classic Alternative band, but never making more music. VH1 got them back together for a concert in 2004 as part of their Bands Reunited series.