Songfacts®:

• As a touring musician, Birdy has spent a lot of time on her own in unfamiliar places. She wrote this soaring ballad about enjoying feeling lost in a big city. "I think because I've been touring since I was young, I'm drawn to that feeling of being far from home in a strange city," she told The Sun. "I find it quite exciting. Loneliness is about that need to travel and be on my own sometimes."
• Birdy wrote "Loneliness" with One Direction songwriter Jamie Scott for her 2016 album Beautiful Lies. At the time she didn't feel attached to it, but while working on her fourth album, Young Hearts, Birdy took the song to Arctic Monkeys, Foals, and Mumford & Sons producer James Ford. She told Apple Music that Ford "came up with this whole different feel for it. This time, it resonated."