In a 2016 recollection, Barclay James Harvest bassist and vocalist Les Holroyd revisited the making of "Poor Man's Moody Blues," a track widely seen as a rare diss song within the prog rock genre. Holroyd, who now fronts one of the two bands that emerged when Barclay James Harvest split after 32 years together in 1998, described feeling uneasy about the song, saying it "was never funny or clever" and that he was "uncomfortable recording it." The recollection sheds light on the internal tensions and creative pressures within the band during its early years.

Holroyd explained that the band—himself, John Lees, Mel Pritchard and Stuart "Woolly" Wolstenholme—had been left largely to their own devices by their label, Harvest, which had little understanding of the emerging progressive rock genre at the time. Working from a shared farmhouse, the group developed their sound with minimal industry interference, a freedom Holroyd credits with shaping their pioneering position in prog rock, even as he remained ambivalent about the Moody Blues-referencing track that resulted.