Songfacts®:

• "Freak Like Me" combines the lyrics from Adina Howard's 1995 R&B song "Freak Like Me" with the synthesizer line from Gary Numan and Tubeway Army's 1979 "Are 'Friends' Electric?."
• UK-based DJ Richard X came up with the idea of making a bootleg mashup of the original recordings of "Freak Like Me" and "Are "Friends" Electric?," calling it "We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends." Released under the alias Girls On Top, it became a classic anthem in UK clubs.
  
  A commercial release beckoned, and a slightly bemused Numan was happy to grant permission for the sample, but Howard wouldn't approve the sample of her voice.
  
  After some time, Island, the record company which had rights to this song, also signed The Sugababes, a band who had just been dropped from London Records. The trio, comprising Heidi Range, Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena, sang the vocals to "Freak Like Me" in place of Howard's, and Richard X remixed the track to suit their singing.
  
  "Somebody had the bootleg and our A&R guy played it to us and we loved it and tried it out," Heidi Range recalled in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh. "It worked so we recorded it properly. It was getting really good feedback, and everyone was liking it so we went with it."
• The Sugababes sang the radio edit lyrics of Howard's original ("brotha" is used instead of "nigga").
• Though Heidi Range, Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena first heard Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" as preteens, they were completely unfamiliar with "Are 'Friends' Electric?"
  
  "I didn't have a clue who Gary Numan was," admitted Buchanan.
• Retitled "Freak Like Me," Sugababes released the R&B/rock hybrid as the lead single from their second studio album, Angels with Dirty Faces. The song went straight to #1 in 2002 in the UK, and effectively kickstarted their career. Five more UK chart-toppers followed.
• "Freak Like Me" was the first Sugababes single to feature Heidi Range, who joined after the departure of Siobhán Donaghy in August 2001.
• Gary Numan did not meet the Sugababes until the Q Awards of 2002 when he presented the trio with the Q award for Best Single. He apparently loved the new song and considered it better than "Are 'Friends' Electric?"