Songfacts®:

• In "Lessons In Love," Level 42 bassist Mark King laments a ruined relationship and pines for the woman who got away. He knows that he's to blame and hopes for a chance to make amends, but we get the feeling that he also knows it's a fool's errand. If he can't have her, he hopes to at least gather pearls of wisdom from the wreckage.
• In America, Level 42 (an English band) had their biggest hit with "Something About You" in 1985, but across Europe "Lessons In Love," released in 1986 as the first single from their album Running In The Family, is far more popular. The song did make an impact in America, reaching #12, but the next four singles from the album didn't chart there was all of them did well in the UK and other part of Europe.
• Guitarist Rowland "Boon" Gould wrote the song's lyrics. According to King, Gould was "in love with the whole alliteration thing, which is why it's 'lessons in love' and there's 'lifeboat,' 'lies,' 'lost at sea' and that sort of stuff. It was a fantastic lyric, something that was a stroke of genius."
• Running In The Family reached Platinum status in the UK soon after its debut, so the band released a special Platinum Edition later that same year, which includes a "Lessons In Love" remix by Shep Pettibone, one of the hottest remixers of the 1980s. He worked with many prominent artists, including Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Mariah Carey, and MC Hammer.
• Mark King got the idea that would become "Lessons In Love" from the song "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn, a British singer popular during World War II for her music and her fervent support of the troops. King inserted his resultant creation into the 1985 A Physical Presence live album, though he has not clarified where this bit can be heard, and it changed so much by the time of "Lessons In Love" that it's hard to identify. Later, when the band was searching for a new song, he brought the bit back to provide a verse melody around which to build "Lessons In Love."
• King began working on the song during Christmas 1985 at his house on Bedford Hill in the Streatham district of London. In January, producer Wally Badarou - an unofficial member and constant collaborator with the band - took King's pieces and created the final song.
• Badarou's production work is one of the most admired aspects of the song, as he used novel technologies to create effects that had not been heard before. One of Badarou's innovations was adding seven bass lines to the song, all held together with a Doctor Click rhythm controller, which had been released four years earlier, in 1982.