When Love Breaks Down

McAloon wrote it in June 1984, in the same week as Appetite and Desire As. He began it on a Roland synthesizer rather than an acoustic guitar and said he did not fight that. He told Melody Maker it was a very personal song.

The first single, produced by Phil Thornalley, came out in October 1984 and reached number 89 in the UK. A reissue in 1985 reached 88. Dolby then recut the vocal and remixed it, and the album credits list it as a Thornalley production with a Dolby remix. That version reached number 25 in October 1985, with chart entries in Australia at 55, Ireland at 26 and New Zealand at 38, and number 42 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. The single edit runs 3:40, the UK album version 4:08 and the US Two Wheels Good version 3:44. The B-side of the original single was Diana, later re-recorded for Protest Songs, and the 1985 reissue also carried The Yearning Loins. A new acoustic arrangement recorded in 2006 was released in March 2007. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky calls it a shimmery ballad about weakening ties.

McAloon said in 1988 that the song had been reasonably successful and brought in a regular trickle of money. It is the second most played song in Prefab Sprout's shows, with 60 setlists on setlist.fm.