The album's cover versions were less mainstream than some of their other recent choices: "War", originally by Henry Cow and Slapp Happy, "Shut Up!", originally by The Monks (whom The Fall had already covered twice on 1990s "Extricate") and a bizarre version of "Junk Man", originally by The Groundhogs. According to Daryl Easlea's sleeve notes for the 2006 reissue, Mark E. Smith prevailed upon the group to deliver the song from memory and, as a result, was backed by minimal drums, bass, kazoo and some tuneless hollering from Burns. "Symbol of Mordgan" is based upon a recording of Scanlon discussing a football match by telephone on John Peel's Saturday afternoon programme.