Songfacts®:

• This song is about some small-time thieves who find themselves suddenly involved in a large robbery. When the time comes to actually do it they start to really freak out and paranoia takes over. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Lee - Ottawa, Canada
• Plenty of smooth criminals are depicted in the media and often make a life of crime seem like a grand adventure. Kate wanted her audience to know that in real life the risk isn't worth the reward. She told Keyboard magazine in 1985: "There are lots of films where robberies take place and yet they glorify them, they always make the robbery something very heroic and fun, risky and dangerous, but for me it's something incredibly scary, something that has such a potential of going wrong that it's not worth the risk, and I don't think it's something that should be glorified at all. I think it's something that should be made very real, so that people realize it's not worth the effort - it's not something that's fun, it's something that's just not worth the effort. You'll end up in jail for 30 years!"
• In the music video, directed by Paul Henry and inspired by German Expressionism and Ealing comedy, Kate plays the leader of a gang of thieves. "They'd built a set somewhere round London Bridge," guitarist Brian Bath, who played the safe cracker, recalled to Uncut magazine. "The set was lopsided. I thought they were going to put the camera at an angle, but the actual set was lopsided. I was the man who cracks the safe with gelignite. We were running down the road with tenners flying everywhere and I caught one in my mouth - you can see it in the final film. It's a bit like the music. We did it all in bits, then they stitched it together."
• The lyrics reference several actors who starred in classic crime movies of the '30s and '40s: James Cagney, George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
• Synclavier player Dave Lawson provided the impression of Edward G. Robinson heard in the background. "I suggested it as a joke," Lawson told Uncut. "Kate said, 'Oh, we should put that in!' And we did, very faintly on the left speaker."