Co-writer Chaz Jankel has repeated a story both in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll: The Life of Ian Dury and Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song by Song that the song was written in Rolvenden, Kent during a jamming session between him and Dury.
The song is noted for a complex 16-notes-to-the-bar bassline played by Norman Watt-Roy, which producer Laurie Latham believed had been influenced by seeing Weather Report bassist Jaco Pastorius in concert, and the saxophone solo in the instrumental break in which Davey Payne plays two saxophones simultaneously.