Songfacts®:

• This song is a satire on the double standards of the pop music industry. It is about a cynical songwriter who has relationships with women in order to get material for the love songs he writes.
• Paul Heaton, the song's writer, was confident of this song's hit potential and wanted the band's record label, Go! Discs, to issue this as The Beautiful South's first single. However the record label wanted to release another song, "Under The Covers," and Heaton had to fervently argue his case for weeks before finally persuading Go! Discs.
• The album depicted a young girl on the sleeve with a gun in her mouth. After numerous complaints, the sleeve was redesigned and showed a bunch of cuddly toys.
• This song also appears on the Beautiful South's greatest hits collection Carry On Up The Charts, which is the fastest-selling greatest hits album ever in the UK. One in seven UK households own it.