Costello wrote this song in 1978 and debuted it at a performance at Hollywood High School on June 4, 1978, accompanied only by Steve Nieve on piano.

In his 2015 memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, Costello gave an account of the inspiration for this song that he would later admit was somewhat fictionalized.

[3] In 2020, Costello said that the taxi driver story was not the sole inspiration, stating, "I needed to construct a single episode in print to stand in for the truth."

He said the song was a more general account of his "failings during that time as a husband and as a father," concluding, "Back in '78, I was young and newly famous, and I didn't have any sense of responsibility.

[4]On a lyrical level, Costello has described the song as "about a straying lover struggling to tell the truth and face the consequences"[5] and "the end of the romance".

[11] Only 9,000 copies of this single were pressed and, when "Accidents Will Happen" was released, both songs were used as B-sides, before later being included on the compilation album Taking Liberties.

A live version of the song would be released on an EP included with early American pressings of Armed Forces, featuring the stripped-down arrangement from Hollywood High with Costello on vocals and Nieve on piano.

[12] AllMusic's Mark Deming described this version as "a telling example of the malleability of Costello's music, and a preview of the stylistic diversity that was to dominate his work in later years".

It features cartoon footage of the band interspersed with accidents, such as toast being burnt, a bathtub overflowing, and a nuclear missile being launched.

Speaking of the video, Jankel said, "Accidents Will Happen" inspired a visually focused conversation that threw up a bank of ideas to do with Accidents—from the mundane Domestic to the catastrophic no-going-back.

Geoffrey Himes of The Washington Post lavishly praised the song in a 1979 article, saying, "'Accidents Will Happen' ... is one of those rare moments in rock 'n' roll that works on all levels at once".

[16] He went on to call the track "the kind of high point that marks a great era of music", comparable with Elvis Presley's "Mystery Train" and Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" in stature.

[21] Ryan Prado of Paste named it Costello's 14th best, praising the opening line for "providing a clever actual beginning to not only the song, but the entire album".

[22] In a list for Louder, David Ford named the song one of Costello's top ten best, similarly praising the opening lyric for "kick[ing] off the Armed Forces album perfectly".