Songfacts®:

• Featured on Roxy Music's seventh album, Flesh + Blood, "Same Old Scene" is a shimmering ode to the impermanence of love. Frontman Bryan Ferry begins the song by acknowledging "nothing lasts forever," hinting at the loss of a previous relationship. As "Same Old Scene" progresses, Ferry contemplates moving on with a new love interest, but he's not sure he can survive further heartache:
  
  Young loving may be
  Oh so mean
  Will I still survive
  The same old scene?
• This song finds Roxy Music experimenting with more electronic instrumentation. In an interview with Classic Pop on November 8, 2022, Ferry credited Flesh + Blood producer Rhett Davies and the London recording studio where they made "Same Old Scene" for providing the inspiration: "We'd become interested in drum machines and sampling etc. and our producer Rhett Davies played a big part in the sound of this record with the triggered strings. Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill was a good change of scene for us. The great bassist Alan Spenner is on this track as well as most of the Flesh + Blood album."
• David Mallet, the British filmmaker behind some of rock music's most celebrated videos, including David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" (1980), Billy Idol's "White Wedding" (1982), and Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" (1984), directed the visual for "Same Old Scene." It takes the form of a simple performance video, with black-and-white footage of Roxy Music in a recording studio interspersed with clips of Ferry dancing in a suit.
• "Same Old Scene" appears in the opening sequence of the 1980 film Times Square. Directed by Allan Moyle, it follows Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson as a couple of teenage runaways coming of age in New York City. With its punk-rock soundtrack and underlying queer narrative, the cult movie has been cited as a source of inspiration by the likes of Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna and the Welsh band Manic Street Preachers. The song can also be heard during the party scene in the 2018 film Can You Ever Forgive Me? starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant.
• Following its release on October 31, 1980, "Same Old Scene" peaked at #12 in the UK. The B-side was a non-album cut called "Lover." Despite not appearing in a single episode of the American crime drama, "Lover" went on to feature on the second soundtrack album for Miami Vice, Miami Vice II, in 1986.
• Flesh + Blood was a commercial success in the UK, charting at #1 on June 28, 1980, before returning eight weeks later. It was also the sixth best-selling album in the UK that year. Conceptualized by British art director Peter Saville, the front cover shows three women holding javelins, although the third woman is only visible on the back of the gatefold. While Roxy Music had no input in the design, Flesh + Blood continued their tradition of using female models as muses, in this case, Shelley Mann, Roslyn Bolton, and Aimee Stephenson.