I'm not sure it was an "attempt to diversify". I think they were proving a point, because they always had tracks on their albums that didn't conform to the 3-chord 12-bar stereotype. Case in point: Quo are of course probably best known for the hit 'Rockin' All Over the World' from 1977. That came from an album of the same name which contained, for the time, some quite original and inventive rock music, and yes, a couple of introspective slower songs. Shame more of these didn't see the light of day as singles.

'Living on an Island' was written by Rick Parfitt about the band's year as tax exiles. The island is Jersey in the Channel Islands, and 'Cruxie' (Alan Crux) was one of their managers at the time.

Parfitt, by the way, was playing in London clubs with Alexis Korner as a teenager, playing chords you wouldn't necessarily associate with the Status Quo that has been incessantly (and ignorantly) derided as 3-chord morons for most of their career. They may have been an irrelevancy in rock and pop terms since about 1980, but there's no denying that they were a top-drawing act in Europe in the 1970s.