The album's title was originally planned to be Great New Product and credited to "Martin Newell featuring the New & Improved Andy Partridge". Humbug label owner Kevin Crace explained that "by the time we'd finished, it had become obvious that Andy had done so much on this album that he should have some other credit besides 'producer'". It was decided that the album should actually be called The Greatest Living Englishman, but on initial pressings, the credit to a "new and improved" Andy Partridge was retained. He said: "we were going to make it like a soap packet ... [I was credited] like an ingredient. And then suddenly, without me knowing it, the album title changed but for some reason they kept that credit. It made sense when the whole concept was like a soap packet, but then the title changed and it all went out the window."
