The song began life in May 1987 at PUK Studios, Denmark with Michael doing a 2-bar LinnDrum loop and Hugh Burns playing the Bo Diddley-style acoustic rhythm guitar part on a nameless metal-bodied acoustic, the latter of which engineer Chris Porter recorded with a Neumann KM84 microphone and double-tracked, along with an electric tremolo part doubling the rhythm. Long-time bassist Deon Estus laid down a DI'd bass part, while the cathedral organ part was recorded with a Yamaha DX7 (although it's otherwise thought to be from a Roland D-50). Porter recorded Michael's vocals using a Neumann M49 microphone (which the former soon bought from PUK) - throughout the "Faith" album and other subsequent solo albums, the latter would usually write lyrics in front of the mic, and build the lead by singing a line, and having Porter rewind the tape so he could drop in at certain points to create the right emotional effect with his voice. For this song, George wanted the vocals to be "dry and in-your-face", like on Prince's songs at the time, which Porter noted "had a very tight delay on the vocals, making him sound very growly but dry and aggressive" - it was that kind of effect they managed to recreate with an AMS DMX 15-80S digital delay, with 35 milliseconds panned slightly to the left and 45 milliseconds panned slightly to the right.