After the album Listen Like Thieves was recorded and ready to be given to the record label for inspection, producer Chris Thomas was worried that the album didn't have a "hit".

As Andrew Farriss recalled in a 2005 interview; "'What You Need' is another example of a huge hit that essentially took no time at all.

We'd already finished the Listen Like Thieves album but Chris Thomas (the producer) told us there was still no "hit".

"[3] A remixed version of "What You Need" was featured in the soundtrack of sports video game FIFA Football 2005.

[4] The music video for the song was created using an animation technique known as rotoscope.