Who Can It Be Now? by Men at Work

About

In 1979, Colin Hay wrote “Who Can It Be Now?” in a tree house. His girlfriend commented at the time that the song would be his first hit, and she was right. Two years later it was Men At Work’s debut single and it became an international smash, one of their two #1 songs in the US and a top 10 in several other countries. In the UK it was a modest hit, peaking at #45. The inspiration behind “Who Can It Be Now?” came from Hay’s former apartment in a building with ‘a lot of … drug dealers’. There were some people living next door who were moving a bit of product. Mistakes were made, and people would knock on our door looking for some kind of stimulant, and we didn’t have it. You were always hearing people banging on other people’s doors. We had one of those little spy holes, and I was always creeping toward the door when someone was knocking, to see who it was. I was never sure I wanted to open the door. Originally the song’s saxophone lick was only played in the middle of the song, but producer Peter McIan suggested adding the sax part throughout, making it a core part of what became the song’s very ‘identifiable hook’. In 2015, The AV Club described the song as one that “blurs the line between private and crazy”. An acoustic performance of the song is track 10 on Hay’s 2003 solo album Man At Work.