"This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" is a song by American pop band Sparks. Written by Ron Mael, it is the opening track on their third studio album Kimono My House (1974), and was the lead single from the album. Although it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" achieved major success in Europe, peaking within the top ten of the charts in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In the latter country, the song peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, where it remained for two consecutive weeks. The song has become the highest-charting for Sparks on the UK Singles Chart, held off from the top spot by The Rubettes' bubblegum pop song "Sugar Baby Love". Background The original idea for the song was that after each verse Russell Mael would sing a movie dialogue cliché, one of which was "This town ain't big enough for both of us". They dropped the idea of having different phrases and instead used only the one in the title. The original working title of the song was "Too Hot to Handle". The record’s producer Muff Winwood used distinctive Western movie-style gunshots on the recording after Ron and Russell "went through a whole BBC library and found the perfect gunshot for that song." It has been claimed that Winwood bet his friend Elton John that the song would become a top-five hit on the UK Singles Chart and that Elton John, saying it would not, lost the bet. However, in his Sparks biography Talent Is an Asset, Daryl Easlea reports that this was a "great tale" propagated by the Mael brothers but contradicted by Winwood himself. Winwood said that he was unsure of how commercial the track would be, so he played it to Elton John, who told him "Listen, I'll bet you a hundred quid that that makes the Top 3". Winwood's wife agreed, and his doubts were allayed. Musical style The song was written without any regard for the vocal style of Russell Mael. Songwriter Ron Mael has explained: "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both of Us" was written in A, and by God it'll be sung in A. I just feel that if you're coming up with most of the music, then you have an idea where it's going to go. And no