Songfacts®:

• "Bad Connection" is a track from Yazoo's 1982 debut album Upstairs At Eric's. Alison Moyet describes it as "perfect Vince Pop," referring to her bandmate Vince Clarke's knack for crafting catchy electronic pop tunes.
• In the song, Alison Moyet is desperately trying to call her baby to let him know she's leaving in the morning, but she can't get through so she calls the operator in desperation. We get the sense that this guy doesn't want to talk to her and is ignoring her calls, but she's convinced it's just a bad connection - why else wouldn't he be picking up!
  
  It's the not first Yazoo song written by Vince Clarke where Moyet comes off a little unhinged. Their song "Don't Go" has a similar scenario.
• The song's rapid-fire lyrics presented a challenge for Moyet, who had to find moments to breathe between the dense verses.
• Like other tracks on the album, "Bad Connection" was presented to Moyet as a simple guitar arrangement in the studio. The duo typically spent two sessions arranging and recording each song, with a third devoted to mixing.
• Moyet admits she initially struggled with the song's upbeat nature, as it contrasted with her tendency to infuse everything with angst at the time. She recalls feeling uncomfortable with its cheerful, "unseasoned" quality, saying, "I struggled after with BC for a bit. The lightness of it and my dark age. I gave everything angst even when it came to me cheerful and unseasoned. I didn't skip readily in public. Obscene."
• That's a real operator in the instrumental break. In an audacious move, Vince Clarke called the operator service (by dialing 100) during the recording session. The resulting conversation, featuring an understandably irritated operator, was incorporated into the track unedited.
  
  Clarke isn't the first to annoy an operator for his art: Pink Floyd did it on their song "Young Lust" from The Wall.
• Alison Moyet has a personal connection to the telephone industry: her mother once worked as an operator on international calls.