In early 1988, it spent three weeks in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 45 on 20 February of that year.

[1] In the United States, the song reached number 65 on the Billboard Hot 100, while a remix of the track by François Kevorkian charted at numbers 11 and 50 on the Dance Music/Club Play Singles and the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales charts, respectively.

[8] Before the song proper begins, Robert Smith can be heard singing "she may be the face I can't forget", the first line of "She" by Charles Aznavour.

In a review of the single for NME in 1988, Steve Lamacq said that the song's dance mix was "spuriously welcoming, but basically a tragedy of trenchfoot" and concluded, "Even I know [Smith has] better stuff hidden in that mop of his".

[9] In an undated review, Stewart Mason of Allmusic described the song as the "weakest" of the singles from the album, adding that it has markedly dated and criticised both Smith's lyrics and his vocal performance.