The music has been described as "a faux European waltz tune",[2] and the arrangement is a very simple one of strummed acoustic guitar and upright bass, with brief bursts of French-style accordion at the start and the end.

[3] The song is about a fictional girl named Marie-Claire who grows up on the poverty-stricken backstreets of Naples, becomes a member of the jet set, and goes on to live in Paris.

It is often suspected that the name Marie-Claire is inspired by Marie Claire magazine, a women's fashion weekly that began in 1937 in France.

One theory says that the song is about the Italian actress Sophia Loren, who was abandoned by her father and had a poverty-stricken life in Naples.

[citation needed] According to Alan Cooper: "Sarstedt insisted it was not written with actress Sophia Loren in mind.

And yes, there's reference to her growing up on the "back streets of Naples", so I can see why people may think it was written with Sophia Loren in mind.

[citation needed] In 1997 Sarstedt recorded a sequel, "The Last of the Breed (Lovely 2)," on his CD England's Lane.

It names more people and places, including Belgravia, Ballets Russes, Cape Town, Claridge's, Gstaad, John Galliano, Harrods, Jerusalem, Long Island, Milan, Rudolf Nureyev, Palm Beach, Rio de Janeiro, and Isabella Rossellini.