 He wrote the melody on a multi-timbre polyphonic Polymoog in his home eight-track studio, and played on and recorded the backing track entirely himself, apart from bass guitar from Norman Watt-Roy and additional hi-hat percussion from Bob Andrews.It has been claimed that the female backing vocal is by Kirsty MacColl, but Lewie has confirmed that during the recording of the song they were done by the wives of producer Andrews and Dave Robinson, the owner of Stiff Records.MacColl did however appear as a backing vocalist during live performances.