Steve Goulding and Andrew Bodnar played drums and bass guitar on the recording respectively and both were from Graham Parker's band, The Rumour.

The end result was what Costello described as a "galloping piano thing that rushes the beat" that still echoed the "sudden jarring gestures that Hermann would use a lot.

[7] He later performed the song with a big band arrangement, which he admitted was "a desecration to people who love the tenseness of the original recording", but explained that "the story that's going on, and the musical allusions in the original arrangements, relate very much to the realization of this song as an orchestral piece using the film music feeling and the swing rhythms of '50s detective shows.

In its review of the song, Cash Box said that it had "a subtle reggae beat and a sinister James Bond/Secret Agent guitar.

[10][11] Allmusic's Mark Deming described the song as "a skeletal minor-key melody that slowly but effectively wound itself into a solid knot of fierce emotional tension, pushing the bitter lyrical atmosphere further into the darkness".

A live medley of "Watching the Detectives" and "My Funny Valentine" recorded in Tokyo was included on the Cruel Smile album by Elvis Costello & the Impostors in 2002.

The reggae beat of "Watching the Detectives" provided Swedish pop band Gyllene Tider with inspiration for the composition of their debut single "Flickorna på TV2" ("The Girls on Channel Two") in 1979,[15][16] which reached number one on the Swedish singles chart in February 1980,[17] launching the career of the band and vocalist Per Gessle.