In 1981, Spandau Ballet guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp met Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan and felt an "instant connection" in part due to their conversations about writers.

[5] He intended the relationship to be platonic since he already had a girlfriend, but he was also competing for her attention with two other men: actor John Gordon Sinclair, who starred with her in Gregory's Girl, and artist David Band, who had designed cover art for Altered Images;[6] he would later do so for Spandau Ballet with the single "Communication".

[2][c] His love of their music factored heavily into writing the title track, even to the point of paying tribute to Gaye on a first-name basis:[19] The bit that goes "Listening to Marvin all night long" was a reference to me and Steve Norman, the band's saxophonist.

[22] Kemp had discovered a Rhodes Chroma keyboard that gave him the sound he wanted, and Bailey adapted Gary's guitar chords so that he could play more than just single notes on the new polyphonic synthesiser.

[5] Kemp wrote in his autobiography that "by far the slickest musician in the band" was Steve Norman,[23] who had played guitar on Journeys to Glory[24] but switched to percussion instruments on Diamond.

"[19] The interest in the saxophone went beyond "True" for Kemp, who recalled how, as teenagers, he and Norman had appreciated its use on hits by Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder and, specifically, on Evelyn "Champagne" King's "Shame".

[29] In his 2004 autobiography To Cut a Long Story Short, Hadley wrote, "It's quite a complicated song to sing in terms of phrasing and timing, and we soldiered on for ages before we felt we'd got it right.

[10] The album was completed the following month,[40] but Kemp explained that when the next single needed to be chosen, the band's manager, Steve Dagger, "didn't want to go with a ballad next and recommended another up-tempo first.

[50] Remembering Keeble riding a room-service trolley down the hotel corridor in celebration, Hadley conceded that they "were all in high spirits" but that the rambunctious activities seemed "slightly flat" in light of their recent success.

That night, poor Richard had to suffer the indignity of the entire Chrysalis company … as well as us, turning up to gloat and guzzle the Branson champagne.Dagger met with Danny Glass, the head of radio promotion at Chrysalis New York, to discuss distributing the song to stations in the US, and Glass proposed starting with those focused on the Black market so that the fact that the band were all white would initially go unnoticed and not deter the potential audience there.

[56] Its eight-week run on the magazine's list of the most popular Black Singles in the US began at the end of the month and included a peak position of 76,[57] and the mid-October edition marked the start of four weeks on the Top Tracks rock chart, where it reached number 34.

[v] It received Gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry in May 1983 for shipping a half-million units[46] and came in at number 6 on the list of the UK's best-selling songs that year.

[71] When Betty Page reviewed the True album for Record Mirror, she wrote, "Kemp proves himself a softie beyond all doubt with final track 'True', a smoochy 'I am just a poor boy' epic, hand firmly on heart.

"[72] Her colleague at the magazine, Daniela Soave, was less ambiguous in her review of the single, calling it a "genuine pearl of a song that deserves to be at number one" and summarizing, "Suffice to say 'True' makes you melt.

[74] In 2015, Peter Larsen wrote for The Orange County Register that the band's formula of mining "a vein of soulfulness tinged with nostalgia and romance" had "reached perfection" on the track, describing it as "the one Spandau Ballet song everyone knows ...

[76] Stewart Mason of AllMusic mixed in negative comments in an otherwise positive review:[77] Tony Hadley's tendency towards vocal histrionics is kept in check here, except for the elongated fade-out where his familiar keening is finally let loose; for the first three or four minutes, however, he delivers the most nuanced and emotional performance of his career.

'[79] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Paul Evans complained that "Kemp, with 'Gold' and 'True', provided Hadley perfect songs for hamming it up: lush MOR that would've been clever if it had been intended ironically.

"[80] When Spandau Ballet were filmed for the "Lifeline" music video, Kemp acknowledged that the clothes they wore were "drab" and that the shift to pop left them "caught in a moment of not knowing what to wear".

[55] Kemp was unhappy with their performances as well[90] and blamed the low numbers on a perceived conflict between Chrysalis founders Chris Wright and Terry Ellis distracting them from promotional efforts.

Hadley felt that the band's inability to sustain the interest of the American public resulted from a few other factors working against them, primarily that their big US hit was very different to what they had already succeeded with elsewhere.

[96] Kemp told Creem in 1984 that he would continue to write for the larger audience Spandau Ballet had acquired with "True" but it would not be making albums that sounded like the last just because it did well.

1" became their highest-charting single,[97] having a UK number 1 put pressure on Kemp to churn out more chart-topping hits and left him feeling that the band would always judge his future output against "True".

[99] In 1984 writer-director John Hughes featured Spandau Ballet's recording of "True" in the school dance scene in Sixteen Candles, and his selection elicited responses decades later.

[101] Julian Kimble of the Washington City Paper wrote in 2014 that its inclusion "made Spandau Ballet's imprint on popular culture permanent" and that the song "adopted new significance, especially among suburban teens".

[102] The 2009 episode of Modern Family titled "Great Expectations" featured Edward Norton playing fictional Spandau Ballet bassist Izzy LaFontaine and beginning a performance of the song, which is then followed by part of the original recording.

[ac] Kemp also received songwriting credit[119] when "True" was sampled on the 2007 hit "You" by Lloyd that featured Lil Wayne[120] and peaked at number 9 on the Hot 100.

[121] The Professor of Rock surprised Hadley in the 2017 interview by pointing out that the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" lifts the piano section at the end of "True"'s sax solo for the melody line of its chorus.

Michael Fremer of Analog Planet speculated that the arrangement was inspired by "Li'l Darlin'" and felt that it "gives the melancholic song a sophisticated lilt, over which Anka sells the lyrics with a powerful, assertive reading.

"[135] John Kappes of The Plain Dealer explained, "Some of the material works as well as you might think; Spandau Ballet's 'True' was, after all, an easy-listening track waiting to happen from the start.

"[136] The Village Voice's Franklin Bruno, however, felt that the album's "several attempts to negotiate impressionistic lyrics (Spandau Ballet's 'True,' Billy Idol's 'Eyes Without a Face') as though they possessed narrative content are comically misguided.