"Go Wild in the Country" was written by Malcolm McLaren with band members Matthew Ashman, Dave Barbarossa and Leigh Gorman.

[1] The January 1982 release of "Go Wild in the Country" coincided with McLaren's "Nostalgia of Mud" phase, in which he intended "to show in clothes and music that, in the post-industrial age, the roots of our culture lie in primitive societies".

[2] Its lyrics convey many of the themes of this ideology, with references to disdain for town life, lonely streets and takeaway food, and a desire to go "wild in the country/where snakes in the grass are absolutely free".

The single sleeve featured the band's recreation of Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe.

[5] The image was re-used for their follow-up EP The Last of the Mohicans,[6] and in 2003 for the Castle Music two-disc anthology, I Want Candy.