Multiple songs from "The Raw & the Cooked" debuted long before their release on the album; the band's cover of Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" originally appeared on the soundtrack for the 1986 Jonathan Demme film "Something Wild". Three other songs from the album—"Good Thing", "Tell Me What" and "As Hard As It Is"—first appeared in the 1987 film "Tin Men", where the Fine Young Cannibals portrayed a band in a nightclub. These three songs have a retro-soul style consistent with the film's 1963 Baltimore setting. At this point, the band were beginning to move away from their "Sixties soul sound", but "Tin Men" director Barry Levinson persuaded the band to retain the sound on the songs. With these songs, the band had already written and recorded enough songs for one half of the album between their contributions to the two films.