"Cruel to Be Kind" is a song co-written by Nick Lowe and his former bandmate Ian Gomm while the pair were in Brinsley Schwarz.

The song only appeared as the 1978 B-side of "Little Hitler" until Columbia Records convinced Lowe to rerecord it as a potential solo single for his 1979 album Labour of Lust.

[5][4] In the US, where it is one of Lowe's most well-known works, it remains his only single to hit the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, whereas in the UK "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" remains his biggest hit, having reached number 7 on the UK singles chart a year earlier.

"Cruel to Be Kind" was originally written by Nick Lowe and Ian Gomm while in Brinsley Schwarz, having been recorded as a demo during the band's final years.

'"[10] In more recent live versions, Lowe has performed the song closer to "The Love I Lost"; he explained, "How I do it now sounds quite different.

[4] Lowe reflected on this, "When I had my couple of hits, I sort of felt like I was ticking a box more than, 'Great, I'm off now on a chart-topping career.'

This version was eventually issued as the non-album B-side of Lowe's "Little Hitler" single, culled from his first solo album in 1978, Jesus of Cool (retitled Pure Pop for Now People in the US).

This is now known as the "original version", as compiled on Lowe's 1999 box set The Doings: The Solo Years and the 2008 expanded reissue of Jesus of Cool, as well as a bootleg entitled It's All Over Now, based on the unreleased album of the same title.

The video for "Cruel to be Kind" was the 67th video to air on MTV and is a combination of actual footage of Lowe's wedding to Carlene Carter,[12] with a humorous re-enactment of the wedding, featuring Carter as herself, Dave Edmunds as their limo driver,[12] Terry Williams as the photographer, Billy Bremner as the baker, and Jake Riviera (Lowe's manager at the time) as the best man.