Phil Collins scored his first US number one single in 1984 with "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)", but the song's origins actually date back around three years earlier. He had written the ballad, then titled "How Can You Just Sit There?", during the emotionally raw sessions for his 1981 solo debut album Face Value, only to leave it off the record because he already had too many similarly sombre tracks. It later found a second life when film director Taylor Hackford asked Collins for a closing-credits song for his movie Against All Odds, prompting Collins to revive and rework the shelved composition.

Collins reshaped the lyrics around the film's plot, recasting the song as a narrator's plea to an ex-partner, and recorded it with producer Arif Mardin, pianist Rob Mounsey and his own distinctive drumming while on tour with Genesis. It became his first movie theme, launching a lucrative pattern that later produced hits including "Separate Lives", "A Groovy Kind Of Love" and "You'll Be In My Heart". "Against All Odds" surpassed his previous best US chart placing, the 1982 cover "You Can't Hurry Love" (number 10), reaching number one in 1984 and becoming the first of his seven US chart-topping singles.