If Bob Geldof shamelessly wrote the A-side with a hit single in mind, it’s one whose chorus lyrics (“She’s so 20th century/She’s so 1970s”) dated as fast as its cartoon bombast. The Boomtown Rats at their most punky, before smouldering Springsteen-homage ‘Rat Trap’ supplanted John Travolta and Olivia Newton John at the chart summit, it came with an equally fervent flipside. Self-produced alongside Steve Brown and with the label annotated “second verse same as the first”, ‘Lying Again’ made the most of the Rats’ group harmonies – drummer Simon Crowe to the fore again, spending much longer in the vocal booth than notorious one-take Johnny, Geldof. Unusually for him the lyrics are a little oblique – an early dig at flaky politicians? – compensated for by a middle eight that inverts afterlife perceptions (“When I was a boy and I was told that heaven was hot and hell was cold/If I told lies I’d freeze my soul”) driven along by Johnny Fingers’ staccato organ and Gerry Cott and Garry Roberts twin guitar attack. It’s on par with their other greatest B-side, the bloody psychodrama of ‘So Strange’ [‘Rat Trap’, 1978].