Songfacts®:

• This propulsive post-punk brooder was inspired by a crime report. It was about an abducted girl who identified her kidnappers from a song on a tape played repeatedly, which was found in their recovered car.
• The song lasts nearly eight minutes, enabling the quasi-industrial groove to wear itself into the ears of the listener. However, it is a length that guitarist Keith Levene remains unhappy about. He said in 2001: "Basically, for me, the track goes on too f--king long. I wish I caught that. If I did it, I'd wrap it up a lot quicker and clean it up a bit. That's our second attempt at that."
  
  "It was a hard line for me to keep playing. I kept doing it again and overdubbing it and then I just decided that I couldn't keep doing it. I still didn't quite have it. I knew what I wanted." (For more on Public Image Ltd. check out our interview with John Lydon).
• Public Image Ltd. recorded "Poptones" for their 1979 longplayer, Metal Box, which is considered one of the most important albums in post-punk history. Rolling Stone included it in their 2003 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list at #469.
• Metal Box was recorded in several sessions with various drummers. Keith Levine rejected the original drummer on this song and played the psychotically lurching rhythm himself. "When you're both in dysfunctional worlds and you find this moment odd absolute clarity, you're out of time and space," bassist Jah Wobble told Uncut of the song's creation. "It's so vivid, it's like looking at the sun."