Songfacts®:

• Human League leader Philip Oakey explained the somewhat cryptic lyrics in an interview with Sounds shortly after the song was released: "It's about people growing old and pretending they're not. It's pretty serious actually. They made me miss out a really nasty verse about being bald and wrinkled. So we thought, that won't give us any pop play, miss it out. 'This girl's teeth have now dropped out'! It's about people who grow old and won't admit it, that's why they say they don't want boys and girls standing near them 'cause you can see the difference."
• This was the first Human League song recorded after the departure of Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh, who formed Heaven 17. This left Oakey and Adrian Wright, who added the female backup singers Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall to the lineup. Oakey and Wright wrote this song and many others on the album that followed: Dare, which was very successful and contained their international hit "Don't You Want Me."
• According to Oakey, the vocals were way out of tune when they put them on the song. This was corrected using a device called a Harmoniser, which puts them in harmony.