Songfacts®:

• This is the lead single from Money & Celebrity, the third studio album by English alternative rock trio The Subways. The song was inspired by a comment one of frontman Billy Lunn's friends made during a night out. Bassist Charlotte Cooper told NME: "Billy wrote the song after he and his friends went out and one of them had just lost his job. It got to midnight and they turned out their pockets and they had no cash left, and the one who had lost his job said to Billy, 'It's OK, we don't need money to have a good time.'"
• Lunn further clarified the meaning behind the song in a 2011 interview with Gigwise: "The song was inspired after a few friends and I went to a club, this great '80s bar near where I live. I was having real difficulty writing the album, every time I pick up the guitar I just couldn't think of anything and a few friends of mine that worked in the public sector lost their jobs and so we thought, 'right, we're going out, we're gonna get pissed and have a great time' and we went to this great 80's bar, it was about midnight, we were hammered and we thought, 'right OK, the club's closing, it's time we moved on to another bar' and we realized that none of us had any cash. My friend who'd just lost his job leaned on to me drunkenly and went 'ah Billy, we don't need money to have a good time' and I went 'that's a song, that's a song!' So I ran home to my flat and I wrote the lyrics to 'We Don't Need Money To Have A Good Time'. That's the first time ever, that I wrote the lyrics before I wrote the music and that's where I sort of picked up writing again really."