Darkness Has Reached Its End was inspired by a poem by Theodore Roethke In A Dark Time The Eye Begins To See. In a press interview at the time, Virginia commented on Darkness Has Reached Its End as "an optimistic song" and referred to the Roethke influence: "when everything's bad then suddenly good seems to come out of it".

The melody on Darkness Has Reached Its End was also used by Virginia on the song Nothing At All on Anne Clark's album Joined Up Writing.

The End Of Time first featured on a 1983 radio session under its original title of The Nursery At The End Of Time. It subsequently appeared as an untitled track on the 1985 Melt The Snow EP.

The children on backing vocals for Darkness Has Reached Its End are three of Virginia's nieces: Aminta Townshend, Zelda & Layla Astley.

The original catalogue number for this release was EKR28T - presumably as the record had initially been scheduled for release on the Elektra subsidiary. Although scratched out, the original catalogue number can still be seen on the run-out grooves.