Songfacts®:

• Sade studied fashion at Saint Martin's School of Art in London, but quickly learned that it's a tough business. She tried opening a boutique but found she didn't have much business sense, so she ended up taking modelling gigs to make ends meet and joining a band called Pride as a backup singer. She started writing songs around this time (1982); one of her first was "When Am I Going to Make a Living," a song she says is about "not wanting to have to scratch around every day."
  
  It got better fast: When Sade and her band (also called Sade) released their debut single, "Your Love Is King," she was squatting in an abandoned fire station. By the time "When Am I Going to Make a Living" was released as its follow-up, she was firmly on her way to stardom. The song captures those precarious early days when success seemed just out of reach.
• On a rainy night in London, Sade had gone to pick up her clothes from the dry cleaners. Feeling disheartened and experiencing a rare moment of self-doubt about her career prospects, she wrote the title of the song on the back of her ticket from the cleaners while making her way home.
  
  "I can remember in the Pride days walking from Turnpike Lane tube," she recalled to Mojo magazine. "It was pouring and I was soaking wet... I got my pen out and started to write 'when am I going to make a living' on a soggy ticket. I got halfway through and the pen stopped working."
• Sade wrote the song with her guitarist and saxophonist Stuart Matthewman. It was produced by Robin Millar, whose collaborations with Sade on their debut album, Diamond Life helped establish the band's signature smooth, sophisticated sound that blends elements of soul, jazz, and pop.
• Stuart Orme directed the song's music video. It shows Sade performing the song in a London taxi and on the city streets.