on the album

Beat Crazy was the first time I really left behind any idea that I was doing rock music. What I tried to do was make some kind of music which just sounded right. Everything was built on the bass and drums instead of the guitar, but that didn’t mean we were doing reggae rhythms – but people said, ‘Joe Jackson’s done a reggae album.’

— interview in Musician (US), Feb. 1983

One To One

It’s about how people sometimes get so hung up on political ideology that they forget the importance of one-to-one relationships. Like one person in the song is saying ‘Sit down, I want to talk to you,’ and the other person is saying, ‘Oh yeah. But what about saving the whale!’
Personally I believe one-to-one things are far more important. Like you can go to a Rock Against Racism gig and be achieving nothing. To me that’s not as important as being able to have a conversation in the pub with a black person. So I’m just trying to push the more individual aspects of it all.

— interview in Melody Maker (UK), 15 Nov. 1980