[4][5] Like the Love's a Prima Donna album, the song was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, sometime between June–September 1976.

[6] English violinist Wilfred Gibson, who contributed to choir and orchestral arrangements on the album, scored the string section for the track.

"[7] In 2020, Harley released a new recording of the song as the opening track on his sixth solo studio album Uncovered.

Harley wrote the new verse one morning in June during his 10-day residency at Rockfield Studios, where Uncovered was being recorded.

Speaking of the inspiration behind the verse, Harley told the Cat Tales podcast in 2022, "My dad was being cremated in Bury St Edmunds that morning.

[19] In a 1976 issue of the EMI Records Weekly News magazine Music Talk, Rex Anderson compared the song with the title track: ""(Love) Compared with You" is the first real highpoint of the album and possibly one of the best things Steve has written to date.

Later in the review, Anderson also praised Tony Rivers for his vocal arrangements on the song and title track.

He described it as "a delicately orchestrated love ballad that manages to be touching and heartfelt without lapsing into sappy sentimentality".

[21] Guarisco spoke of the song again in a review of the 1987 Greatest Hits compilation, noting it was a "delicate, subtly orchestrated tune where Harley drops his yen for surrealistic lyrics to communicate in direct and elegantly romantic terms".

[27] In 2010, Harley supported the Children in Need charity by auctioning a personal mini-concert at the winning bidder's home, as well as a signed guitar and a lavish dinner.

In December that year, it was revealed that Harley was set to travel to the fan's home to play their requested song, which was "(Love) Compared with You".