On My Mind

Album: Delirium (2015)
Charted: 5 13
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This Max Martin produced song is a guitar-led tale of a drunken hookup with a tattooed admirer. "I think lyrically a lot of my fans will go back to when I first started releasing songs even on to Myspace and things like that because I was very explicit and honest with my lyrics and I would literally just sing what I was thinking," Goulding told MTV News. "I think it's genuinely gone back to that. I think for the past couple of years I've maybe been filtering out lyrics quite a bit and going for a more typical kind of pop structure, but this song, we had so much fun writing it, it just comes back to that basic thing of having that person just constantly stuck in our heads."
  • Goulding told Q magazine the song was inspired by a time she was, "on tour, drinking too much and going off the rails."
  • Ed Sheeran's hit tune "Don't" was taken by many to be a pop at former girlfriend Goulding, allegedly about her cheating on him with One Direction's Niall Horan while they were all in the same hotel in the summer of 2013. Now many are interpreting this song as Goulding's response. "Next thing that I know I'm in the hotel with you," she croons allegedly claiming he took the relationship more seriously than her. "You were talking deep like it was mad love to you."

    However the songstress does admit she liked his body art. "You wanted my heart but I just liked your tattoos," she sings. (Ed Sheeran has multiple inkings)

    Goulding denied to MTV News that Sheeran is the subject of the song. "I'm sorry to all the people who want it be about someone. It's not," she said. "It's like a myth. There's no one to be thinking about. It's just a fun song, and that's the first of its kind 'cause I do like to write about my own experiences."
  • Goulding describes this song as being "about having someone from your past still resonate in your present." She added: "It's about the vulnerability of being human, and it's just the case of another relationship not being black and white."
  • Directed by Emil Nava and set in Las Vegas, the revenge video sees Goulding snapping after being yelled at by an aggressive dude, with whom she'd had a fling. She brings a partner-in-crime on board, played by actress Cristina Squyres, in order to get even with the guy.

    "It's a weird place," Goulding said of Las Vegas. "We went to this old casino and filmed stuff in there. I worked with the director, Emil, I worked with him before with Calvin Harris [he helmed the "I Need Your Love" clip]. He's a friend of mine and we wanted to do something really mad. We wanted to ride some horses, and there's a gangster who is a not very good guy. It's kind of got a Thelma & Louise thing about it. "

    "I did do my own stunts, I'm pretty good like that," Goulding added. "As long as it doesn't involve a bungee jump. That's a bit too far."
  • Ellie Goulding gave the song its live debut on September 19, 2015 when she opened the 2015 Apple Music Festival at Camden London's Roundhouse.
  • Goulding said this is the most important track on Delirium, "because I feel like it made me accept how I had changed and what I wanted to do."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Judas Priest

Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The Remasters

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The RemastersSong Writing

Brian has unearthed outtakes by Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and hundreds of other artists for reissues. Here's how he does it.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

Bob Daisley

Bob DaisleySongwriter Interviews

Bob was the bass player and lyricist for the first two Ozzy Osbourne albums. Here's how he wrote songs like "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" with Ozzy and Randy Rhoads.

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Danny Clinch: The Art of Rock Photography

Danny Clinch: The Art of Rock PhotographySong Writing

One of rock's top photographers talks about artistry in photography, raising funds for a documentary, and enjoying a County Fair with Tom Waits.