Cashbox Top 100 chart and #21 on the Adult Contemporary chart, #16 on the Australian singles charts, and #22 on the NZ singles charts. Chart performance Īt the time of release, "Follow You Follow Me" became the band's most successful single, reaching #7 on the UK Singles chart, peaking at #23 on the U.S. ĭrummer and vocalist Phil Collins described it as "a great rhythm track" but said it "was not intended to be a hit single". I think we find it much easier to write long stories than simple love songs. Maybe "Follow You Follow Me" was almost too banal, but I got used to it. I'd just written a simple love lyric for " Many Too Many", and I think Mike was keen to try the same thing. It worked so well as a very simple thing it was enough as it stood. Mike played the riff, then I started playing a chord sequence and melody line on it, which Phil then centralized around. It was our only truly group-written number. At the time, the band usually wrote songs individually. The song started from a chord sequence by Rutherford, who also said he wrote the lyrics in about ten minutes. The band felt that their music was attracting mainly male audiences, so this song was written specifically to address the imbalance. Although previous albums contained love ballads, such as Selling England by the Pound's "More Fool Me" and "Your Own Special Way" from Wind & Wuthering (1976), "Follow You Follow Me" was the first worldwide pop success by the group.
Like much of the rest of the album, the slower, sentimental "Follow You Follow Me" was a departure from most of their previous work as a progressive rock band, featuring a simple melody, romantic lyrics and a verse-chorus structure.