[8][9] Christening themselves the Lilac Time (a name taken from the lyrics of Nick Drake's song "River Man"),[8] the band began recording at producer Bob Lamb's Highbury Studio in Kings Heath, south Birmingham on 26 August 1986.

[6] DiGravina noted the song's rolling banjos and political and sociological lyrics, while also describing it as, "evocative of a vintage 1800s steam train roaring through green pastures and lush vineyards".

[6] In 2005, the song "Trumpets from Montparnasse" was used in a Flora margarine television advertisement in the UK, and it also appeared the following year in the BBC Three documentary series, Honey, We're Killing the Kids.

[6] The song's author, Nick Duffy, told The Times newspaper in April 2006 that the Flora advert had so far earned him £37,000, adding, "I celebrated by buying two pairs of shoes from the same shop, on the same day.

"[23] The Lilac Time was reissued in an expanded and remastered edition by Fontana in 2006, with the addition of nine bonus tracks, including five previously unreleased BBC Radio 1 recordings first broadcast in 1988.

[20] In the 20 February 1988 edition of Melody Maker, John Wilde called the album "quietly delightful" and singled out the songs "Return to Yesterday" and "You've Got to Love" as highlights, describing them as "internally combustible" and "ravishing" respectively.

DiGravina also commented, "Right off the bat, Stephen Duffy and company mix poetry, pop melodies, and folk instrumentation to create songs of endless charm, mesmerizing passion, and tantalizing atmosphere.

"[1] Trouser Press described the album as "unfailingly delightful" and an "unprepossessing gem", while making note of its "jaunty love songs, small-town contemplations and skeptical bits of philosophy brought to life with simple delicacy...".