Josephine

Rea wrote it for his first daughter, Josephine, and named it after her, though the video suggests a wife or a girlfriend. Recorded in December 1984 for Shamrock Diaries, it was the album's second single and reached number three on the Dutch Top 40, seven in France and 13 in Flanders. Rea thought of it as a blues song. He wanted the rhythm track to sound like Yellowjackets and Weather Report, and said that to him it grooves like hell. Requests for changes from the record company led to many versions, among them a single edit and a 1988 re-recording for New Light Through Old Windows.

He told Songfacts that on stage he shuts his eyes and goes back to where he wrote a song, and for this one that is a rainy third floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Dusseldorf.

La Version Francaise

A Warner representative in France told Rea the chords sounded like early Chic, so he cut a dance version and sent it there. Paul Oakenfold brought it back to England, where it caught on in acid house, and Magnet released it as Josephine (La Version Francaise). Mixmag calls it a classic of the late 1980s Balearic beat, and its French edit has been played by Pete Tong, Dimitri From Paris and Todd Terje. Superfunk built their 2000 hit Lucky Star, with Ron Carroll, on a sample of it.

Live

Rea first played it at the Edinburgh Playhouse in February 1985, before the album was out, and it became his most performed song, logged 168 times on setlist.fm. It was in the Rockpalast set at the Loreley in 1985 and at Montreux in 1986, and was in the set throughout his last tour in 2017. The upload in the hypersongs web is a fan upload.