A singer in this band wrote this song and planned to include it on her 1980 solo album Bella Donna. She didn't have room for it on the album, so she held it over for the band’s Mirage album. By this time, her friend Robin Anderson was dying of leukemia and the song became a tribute to her.
Then things got WEIRD: Shortly after Robin Anderson died, this singer married her deceased friend’s husband, she explained what she was even thinking in a 1990 interview:
"Robin was one of the few women who ever got leukemia and then got pregnant. And they had to [deliver] the baby [named Matthew] at six-and-a-half months, and then she died two days later.
And when she died, I went crazy. I just went insane. [I clung to] her husband. And we were the only two that could really understand the depth of the grief that we were going through. And I was determined to take care of that baby, And so we got married three months after she died, and it was a terrible, terrible mistake...We got divorced three months later.”
Today’s song was recorded at Le Chateau Studios in France, which was known as the "Honky Chateau" - Elton John recorded there and named his 1972 album after the studio's nickname.
The song’s video was directed by the same guy who directed "Video Killed The Radio Star." He wasn't familiar with the drama of the band members' love lives, so he paired up Lindsey Buckingham and the singer of today’s song in some scenes. They had ceased to be a romantic couple six years earlier and had since become a contentious one. Still, they danced together in the video.
The song holds an upbeat, bouncy tone that conveys the carefree nature of the song’s subject matter. Referencing all of today’s artist’s favorite memories of simplicity, it encompasses the artistic freedom that comes with an early music career. That along with the poignant dedication to her friend, Robin Anderson, the song has dual meanings of emotional tribute and self-liberation.