This title track opens the third album released by The Jam, following their rather lackluster sophomore effort, which had dissapointed both the musical press and their label after what had been a very commercially and critically successful debut.
On top of that, the band had come back from a failed attempt to “break America” on the verge of splitting and its frontman and main songwriter, Paul Weller, was facing a writer’s block after the record company had rejected their first batch of demos. Armed with all this accumulated frustration, he penned this angry hard-hitting punk-rock opener, clocking at less than a minute and a half and lashing out against his perceived exploitation by their label. In fact, the A&R man who produced the band’s first three albums was only able to sign them “by offering them so little money to sign that record company management couldn’t object”.
The next track is somewhat connected to this song, since it is a story of ambitioning fame and then becoming disillusioned after success and its trappings have vanished.