Songfacts®:

• This was the lead single from the Portland, Oregon alternative rock trio's fourth album, Music For Men. Guitarist Brace Paine described it to Spin magazine as "basically like Donna Summer singing a Bauhaus song."
• The single was especially successful in Germany, where despite never reaching #1, it broke the German record for the longest selling track in chart history, having spent 97 weeks on their top 100.
• The Gossip were the first new band to be helmed by Rick Rubin since he was installed as an unconventional co-head of Columbia Records in 2007. Dazed and Confused magazine asked him how he knew that he wanted to work with The Gossip. Rubin replied: "When I first saw them, it felt less like a concert and more like a party. It felt like a celebration, and I liked that. You could feel that everyone - the band and the audience - were very much on the same page. I just want to find music that I feel emotionally connected to. I really love the Gossip's music. It' really unique and everybody in the band is great."
• Paine told Spin magazine about working with Rubin: "He came in when we were laying down instrumental tracks, and he loved everything we played. He helped us a little bit with arranging, because that's one of the things we're not too good at. We're open to new sounds, but sometimes it just turns out that our songwriting is verse/chorus/verse/chorus. We never went to music school, and neither did he, yet he understands the structure and mathematics of a song. We have one song that's just a bass line going over and over, and he was like "keep repeating, keep repeating." It was really cool. It was great working with him because he was just a hilarious guy, too. We would just hang around and listen to records. It was fun."
• Paine explained the album title to Spin: "It's a poke at people who would say that we were a band for girls. There were a few times when guys would come up to me and say, 'Oh, my girlfriend loves your band.' So it was a funny take on that."
• Vocalist Beth Ditto explained this song to the NME June 27, 2009: "I know so many amazing people who devote their lives to undoing things, and I feel that's the essence of punk now because punk's already been done, it's old. It's about recreation and my friends, who I feel like are the ultimate creative re-creators."
• Paine told The Quietus how the writing dynamic worked on Music For Men: "Beth (Ditto) likes me have full reign, she trusts me and my tastes and what I was doing. Hannah (Blilie) did her drum tracks in a week, and I stuck around for a month and a half just building and building on her drum tracks. I'd be emailing Beth tracks, and we went on from there. It felt like a true collaboration."