Bed and Breakfast Man

Album: One Step Beyond (1979)
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Songfacts®:

  • Guitarist Chris Foreman in Uncut magazine March 2008: "'Bed and Breakfast Man' was about Jon Hasler. He'd been our manager and was very important to putting the band together. He'd turn up at our house, and next thing you knew he was there for breakfast, eating the kids' leftovers!"
  • This was written by the band's keyboardist Mike Barson, who was inspired by the bass line in Smokey Robinson's "The Tears of a Clown." He told Daniel Rachel (The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters): "[They're] sort of similar, although they sound miles apart. Nobody would say, 'Oh bloody hell, 'Bed and Breakfast Man' sounds like 'Tears of a Clown'.' Everything, any sort of human endeavor, has got such a history behind it. Somebody makes the first fridge and it's like Fort Knox and then somebody makes a smaller one. It's all about refining and building on other stuff. In music you get inspired by other people's music."

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