[2] Following the release of her debut album, Whatever's for Us, a collaboration with lyricist Pam Nestor, Armatrading ended her contract with Cube Records and signed instead with A&M.

[7] Because of this, Gage eventually lost his patience with her and while driving Armatrading to Paddington Station so that she could catch the train to visit a friend in Reading,[3] he gave her a dressing down, telling her she should think herself lucky to have musicians and studios at her disposal and that many artists would give a great deal to be in her position.

Gage's remarks helped Armatrading to "grow up" and made her realise that she could in fact be a performer and make a living from music, something she had previously not considered.

It was through this that she acquired her love of "night people", encountering "beggars, buskers … and Vietnam veterans with bits of their arms and legs missing".

[13] Armatrading mentions during a live concert released as the Steppin' Out DVD that she began writing the song in Amsterdam and finished it in London three months later.

Several tracks from Back to the Night subsequently appeared on many compilation albums: "Steppin' Out", "Dry Land", "Cool Blue Stole My Heart", and "Come When You Need Me".

[17] The song "Back to the Night" was later re-released as a re-mix version in November 1983 as the b-side of the single "Heaven" (AM 162) from the compilation album Track Record.

A review in Record Mirror referred to the album's "indefinable magic" and music that's "a lot funkier" than her debut album and stated, "Joan Armatrading is quietly destroying musical barriers, providing something fresh and invigorating that's flavoured by lingering touches of Soul, Blues, Folk and the sounds of Joan's Caribbean birth-place; the result is one of the most compelling artists working in Britain today.

"[22] Wilfrid Mellers, writing in Angels of the Night, stated that "the tone is bold, the rhythms sprightly and the phrasing clipped" and singled out the songs "Travel So Far" and "Steppin' Out" as "reggae-style peans to freedom".