"Earn Enough for Us" is a power pop song with subject matter similar to Partridge's previous "Love on a Farmboy's Wages". He wrote "Earn Enough" about his former days working at a paint shop. The lyric "I can take humiliation and hurtful comments from the boss" refers to the shop's owner, Middle Mr. Turnley. "He'd come into the shop and go, 'Snort! snort! Look at ya, you fuckin' useless little cunt, snort! snort! You got a fuckin' girl's haircut, ya little cunt, snort!'" The opening riff was invented by Gregory after some persuasion from Rundgren. Moulding temporarily left the group after a dispute over the bass line, which Partridge felt had been going in a direction that was too "bluesy".