Gabriel composed lyrics about a man whose unemployment causes stress in his domestic relationship. He had seen a TV program about the consequences of unemployment on family life, and said that it "played into my own problems at that time.

Peter Gabriel has been married to Meabh Flynn since 2002. They have two sons together, born in 2001 and 2008, Isaac and Luc. He has two daughters, Anna-Marie (born 1974) and Melanie (born 1976) from his first marriage to Jill Moore.

The inventive music video definitely helped, but the song itself was the perfect blend of pop, soul, funk, and Gabriel's experimental studio techniques that defined his career. Undoubtedly the peak of his mainstream fame, the video for 'Sledgehammer' is consistently voted as one of the best of all time.

Written by Peter Gabriel, the song was produced by Daniel Lanois and Peter and engineered by Kevin Killen and Lanois and features the guest vocals of Kate Bush. Bush had previously provided vocals for the tracks Games Without Frontiers and No Self Control on Peter's third solo album.