Songfacts®:

• New Order linked up with influential New York DJ Arthur Baker for this synthpop single. The band penned it during the same sessions in the Big Apple that also spawned out their hit tune "Confusion."
• The song is named after the 1974 Robert Altman film Thieves Like Us. The title was suggested by Arthur Baker's associate, John "Jellybean" Benitez.
• Ironically, given the song title, Peter Hook stole the bass line from Hot Chocolate's 1974 song "Emma." Hook recalled to TeamRock:
  
  "I did bump into (Hot Chocolate frontman) Errol Brown and felt that I had to confess, and Errol Brown said to me 'Well done, my boy!' Which was very nice of him I thought. These days, he'd be bloody suing you, wouldn't he?"
• This was released as the follow-up to New Order's best-known song "Blue Monday." However Hook thinks this is a much better tune. He told Q magazine: "I honestly thought 'Thieves Like Us,' the single after 'Blue Monday,' was far superior. 'Blue Monday''s not a song, it's a feeling, but once people hear that drum riff they're off."