Songfacts®:

• Running 5:09 and not to be confused with any other song of the same name, the Phil Lynott number "Hey You" was co-written with drummer Brian Downey, and is the 9th and final track on the 1980 Chinatown album.
• In an interview published in New Musical Express July 5, 1980 (and reproduced on the journalist's website in July 2011), Lynott told Paul Du Noyer:
  
  "Every night I change the lyrics because I haven't got what I know I'm trying to say. It's about how when you leave your home town everybody goes 'You've got it made now man, you're off'. And when you get to London you haven't, you've just solved one set of problems for another. And I'm trying to get that 'Hey you got it made, your record's in the hit parade' and they don't realize your problem now is getting the next hit or whatever.
  
  The amount of kids that go 'I wish I was you, you've done everything!' and I think 'Jesus, if you only knew the problems I f--kin' have, trying to maintain, and improve!'"
  
  The song has a slight reggae feel to it at the beginning, and although Lynott knew what he was talking about, he couldn't have dreamed how prophetic his words would be; by the time he gave the aforementioned interview, he had less than six years to live. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2