Songfacts®:

• "Left of Center" was written by Suzanne Vega for the soundtrack to John Hughes' 1986 teen movie Pretty in Pink. Vega was given the screenplay by her label, A&M, and asked to come up with a song. She climbed into the head of Andie Walsh, the film's Molly Ringwald character, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who finds herself entangled with wealthier classmates and the complicated business of being 17, when a school dance can apparently acquire the emotional importance of a minor international summit.
  
  "Molly plays a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who gets involved with a lot of richer people," Vega explained. "The film centers on her high school prom, that's the coming out dance American girls have when they're 17. They have a corsage (bunch of flowers) and get dressed up and hope someone asks them to dance."
• The title sums up Andie's position. She's literally and figuratively "left of center," living "off of the strip," "in the outskirts and in the fringes," and "in the corner, out of the grip." She feels like an outsider among her wealthier peers.
• Unlike some of Vega's more autobiographical songs (such as "Gypsy," written for a real summer romance, or "Luka" inspired by an actual neighbor), "Left of Center" was written as a character study, voicing Andie's longing for Andrew McCarthy's character, Blane. Still, Vega didn't completely leave herself out of the picture. "I was writing mostly for the film," she said, "but also I wanted a song that I could sing myself, so I put a fair amount of myself into it."
• Vega wrote the song with Steve Addabbo, her longtime collaborator, guitarist and co-producer. Addabbo handled the production with Arthur Baker, the influential American producer and DJ whose credits included work with New Order and Afrika Bambaataa. Baker's involvement gave the track a connection to the dance-pop and new-wave world that dominated much of the Pretty in Pink soundtrack.
• Joe Jackson, Vega's fellow A&M labelmate, played the piano. His contribution became such a notable part of the recording that the single was credited as "Suzanne Vega Featuring Joe Jackson on Piano."
  
  "He wasn't very talkative, but he was super easy to work with," Vega recalled to Mojo magazine "His playing was so beautiful and melodic. We never did get to play it live. Shame."
• Music supervisor David Anderle assembled the Pretty in Pink soundtrack by looking past mainstream American radio to focus on British new wave and post punk talent. The album gave acts like OMD, the Psychedelic Furs and Echo & the Bunnymen significantly greater exposure in the United States.
  
  "Left of Center" was something of an outlier on the soundtrack. While much of the album was filled with synth-pop, dance-rock and post-punk, Vega brought a more intimate, folk-based songwriting style to proceedings.
• Vega said that when she wrote the song, she pictured it playing over the film's closing credits, but director John Hughes had other plans. The song plays out of a car radio during a dialogue scene, with characters talking over most of it, "so that wasn't quite how I imagined it."
• The music video, directed by Richard Levine, shows Vega performing in what appears to be a warehouse or loft, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to stare directly into the camera.
• Released as a single, "Left of Center" reached #32 on the UK Singles Chart, #35 in Australia and #7 in the Netherlands. It later appeared on Vega's live album Live in London 1986 and was included on her greatest-hits collection Tried & True: The Best of Suzanne Vega.