During the interim between the release of Hey Ricky and that of the precedent For the Working Girl in September 1980 Manchester had attempted to extricate herself from her recording contract, filing suit in May 1981 for contractual release from Arista.[2] However it was announced that October that the singer and label had reached terms and the track "Race to the End" - a vocal version of the Chariots of Fire theme - was recorded for single release. The producer was Arif Mardin who had previously collaborated with Manchester in 1979 on "Theme from Ice Castles".
Mardin proceeded to collaborate with Manchester on the tracks which would comprise the album Hey Ricky released in April 1982. The lead single "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," originally recorded by Charlie Dore ("Pilot of the Airwaves"), radically reinvented Manchester as a synthpop dance artist and was heavily promoted by the singer who displayed a new image complementing the track. "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" accrued gradual interest entering the Top 40 of the "Billboard" Hot 100 in July 1982 proceeding to the Top Ten that August with a career best peak for Manchester at #5. The single's popularity was reflected in that of its parent album which Billboard ranked with a #19 peak.
The other cuts on Hey Ricky included the 1981 "Race to the End" single, a duet with David Gates: "Wish We Were Heroes"; "Your Place or Mine" from the soundtrack of the feature film A Little Sex, and a new version of "Come in From the Rain" introduced by Manchester on her 1976 Better Days and Happy Endings album: the last-named song had been co-written with Manchester's most constant lyricist of the 1970s Carole Bayer-Sager who was also represented on Hey Ricky with a new (and final) songwriting collaboration with Manchester entitled ""Looking for the Perfect Ahh" (co-written by Robbie Buchanan). The title cut "Hey Ricky" was written by Manchester with Bernie Taupin the lyricist for Elton John in the first phase of the latter's recording career: "Hey Ricky" was the second (and final) Manchester/ Taupin songwriting collaboration, the pair - after meeting via having the same manager - having collaborated on the title cut of Manchester's 1980 album release For the Working Girl. Issued as the follow-up single to "You Should Hear How She Talks About You", "Hey Ricky" would fail to chart.
After a 1983 Greatest Hits album release Manchester would release only one more album on Arista, then part company with the label, retaining the dance artist focus of her "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" hit for her one album with MCA.
