Jones relocated to New York City after her split from Tom Waits, and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey, whom she had met in Venice, California in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village.
Jones started writing the first songs from the album - "Hey Bub" (unreleased until 1983), "We Belong Together" and "Pirates" - in the autumn of 1979.