Songfacts®:

• According to Boy George, this upbeat ditty has a message. The Culture Club lead singer explained in a 1983 Trouser Press interview: "My lyrics may not be so straightforward, but they are very real – like 'I'll Tumble 4 Ya' is about wanting to do anything to be the next big thing. We were very much a 'downtown band' at the time I wrote those words. In general I think my basic ideas come across."
• A track from their debut album, this was the third single released in the United States by Culture Club, who got a lot of attention on MTV thanks to their androgynous frontman. In the days before you could Google such things, there was plenty of chatter about whether the singer was a boy or a girl. This look was far less shocking in England, where they were used to variations of Glam and music on TV, but in America it was something different.
• The single that charted in the United States was a remix created for release in that country. Following "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" and "Time (Clock Of The Heart," it made Culture Club the first British band since The Beatles to score three Top 10 hits from their debut album. They enjoyed some critical success as well, winning the 1983 Grammy for Best New Artist.
• This was featured in the 1995 Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison. Culture Club showed up again in a Sandler film when "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" was used in his 1998 effort The Wedding Singer.
• Siobhan Barron directed the popular music video, which has the group performing alongside tumblers and female dancers in a rehearsal studio. The band's drummer Jon Moss, guitarist Roy Hay and bassist Mikey Craig all took tap lessons so they could perform a routine in the clip, but they chickened out and the scene was replaced.
  
  Recognize one of those dancing girls? That's future supermodel Naomi Campbell as a pre-teen.