On 20 December 1940, during World War II, the Luftwaffe bombed the railway station even though Ireland was a neutral country.

The writer James Joyce lived for a week as a young man in the Martello Tower situated beside the Forty Foot bathing place at Sandycove.

Near the tower, on the seafront, is the unique landmark house designed in the Avant Garde style by Michael Scott, the eminent 20th-century architect, who made it his residence.

In the song, the narrator reflects on his life's choices and his mortality as he visits the neighbourhood and the famed Martello Tower.

Singer-songwriter Luka Bloom, in the liner notes to his 1992 album, The Acoustic Motorbike thanks Sandcove Cycles for maintaining the titular bicycle.