Songfacts®:

• The first single from Clean Bandit's second album, this electro-classical banger features vocals by Louisa Johnson, who won the 12th series of The X Factor back in December 2015. It was released on May 27, 2016.
• The song finds a heartbroken Johnson trying to get over a boy that she loved. Unfortunately he didn't have the same feelings for her.
  
  I tried hard to make you want me
  But we're not supposed to be
  And the truth will always haunt me
  Even though it set me free
  
  Clean Bandit's Jack Patterson, who co-wrote the tune with Sam Romans said: "Tears is an epic trap-2step break-up ballad. I wrote it with Sam Romans at the piano, and over the course of a year, it has transformed from a simple piano tune into a mad beast of changing time signatures and feels. To me, Tears feels like a 1990s vision of a future break-up song."
• The video features plenty of fire, water and smoke as Clean Bandit and Louisa Johnson perform the track. Jack Patterson said: "The video conveys the fire you need to find within yourself in order to part from a person you love."
• The owl in the video is the same one that played Hedwig in the Harry Potter movies.
• The song was originally due to be sung by Swedish X Factor winner Awa, but somehow eventually ended up being sent to Simon Cowell's Syco label. This resulted in the mogul requesting that "Tears" be given to UK X Factor winner Louisa Johnson. "I was nervous about Louisa," Jack Patterson admitted to Q magazine. "The rest of the band had seen her performing on The X Factor but I didn't know what to expect."