The Birthday Party were having trouble completing their album, Junkyard (May 1982), and the two bands decided to join forces on a song during downtime.
The collaboration performed live only once, at Richmond's Tiger Lounge venue doing a cover version of "Ring of Fire".
"After the Fireworks" was released as a single in the same year by Keith Glass, owner of the label Missing Link, who explained that he did so to recoup money he had lost on the Birthday Party in studio time.
[1]"That single was like a jam session we had in the studio which lasted about 2 hours and we never even finished... How on earth they could release it I really don't know.
[1][7] The song appeared on the CD release of Drunk on the Pope's Blood (the 1982 split LP between the Birthday Party and Lydia Lunch), the Birthday Party's 5–disc box set, The Definitive Missing Link Recordings 1979-1982, the second disc of the re-released CD edition of the Go-Betweens' album, Send Me a Lullaby (2002), and on an Australian various artists' compilation album, No Worries, on Hot Records.