Songfacts®:

• In 1980 Human League founder members Martyn Ware and Ian March left the band to form the British Electronic Foundation which later became known as Heaven 17. Frontman Phil Oakey replaced them with Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley, two schoolgirls he'd spotted dancing together on the dance floor. This was the first song he and bandmate Adrian Wright wrote after the 1980 split and was the closest that they came to the dark, arty electronica sound of their first two albums. The remaining tracks they wrote for their third LP Dare, particularly the single "Don't You Want Me," saw the band shift towards a more commercial sound.
• The subject of the song is Judge Dredd, a character from the British comic book 2000 AD, and was written from his point of view. A few years later, Anthrax recorded a single about the same fictional law enforcement officer.