Originally, Paul Weller had wanted to exclude the song from the All Mod Cons album,[2] on the grounds that the arrangement had not sufficiently developed during the recording sessions.

[3][4] The song was recorded on 7 August 1978 at RAK Studios in London together with "Mr. Clean", "In The Crowd" and "The Place I Love", all of which also appeared on All Mod Cons.

[5] The song tells the story of an unnamed narrator travelling on his own who enters a London Underground tube station at midnight to get the last train home, where he is attacked by a gang of men who 'smell like pubs, and Wormwood Scrubs, and too many right-wing meetings' as he buys a ticket from an automated machine.

[6] The song starts with the atmospheric sounds of a London Underground station, then a tense, syncopated beat carried by the bass guitar.

The lyrics are sentimental, contrasting the warmth of home and domestic life with the dangers of 1970s London's urban decay and casual late-night violence.