Songfacts®:

• "Don't Give Up on Me" features on the soundtrack of the romantic drama movie Five Feet Apart. The film tells the story of two teenagers with cystic fibrosis who fall in love; they try to have a relationship despite always being advised to stay a certain distance away from each other for the sake of their health.
• Five Feet Apart was directed by Justin Baldoni, an old pal of Andy Grammer's. The song fits the movie so perfectly, you'd think he wrote it specifically for the soundtrack, but the singer explained to ABC Radio that he was approached by Baldoni for the soundtrack after he had already written "Don't Give Up On Me," and he didn't have to alter anything.
  
  "I think any artist or any human - I mean it's a pretty universal idea of, man, just keep pushing, don't give up," he said.
• Andy Grammer wrote the song with Maroon 5 multi-instrumentalist Sam Farrar, who also plays acoustic guitar on the track.
• When Grammer wrote "Don't Give Up On Me," he looked back on past relationships, especially those when someone stuck by him in difficult times. "I have had many moments in my life where I wouldn't give up on someone else, where I believed in them when they didn't believe in themselves," Grammer explained. "Hell, I've had super intense moments where I wouldn't give up on myself. But the most powerful memories from my personal vantage point are the ones when someone wouldn't give up on me."
• The song featured in the October 3, 2019 "Back in the Saddle" episode of Grey's Anatomy. It played during the show's end montage.