The lyrics, which are about a brief love affair in the city of Vienna, were quickly written by Midge Ure. According to Currie, Ure was hesitant about the overly classical romantic feel of the orchestration, and said: "This means nothing to me," to which the producer Conny Plank replied: "Well, sing that then." Ure said that he had in his mind only the line "The feeling is gone, this means nothing to me – oh Vienna!" when he went into studio. Then he wrote the vocal part while bass player Chris Cross started playing some bass lines with his synthesizer.