 Nicely began recording the follow-up, "Hilly Fields (1892)", in December 1980, but the recording process was slow and laborious, and Nicely had to sell his personal possessions to pay for the studio time.Recording of the song took six months to complete, followed by another month of production work before Nicely was happy with the results.Hearing the early demo of the song, Hansa turned down the opportunity to release it, but an A&R man at EMI was more enthusiastic and signed Nicely to the label.