Songfacts®:

• Conan Gray's debut album, Kid Krow, comprises a collection of melancholic tracks inspired by his difficult childhood ("Affluenza," "The Story") as well as teenage experiences with toxic relationships ("The Cut That Always Bleeds," "Maniac") and unrequited love ("I Wish You Were Sober," "Heather"). For his first solo release since Kid Krow, Gray came up with a soaring pop-rock anthem, which is the antithesis to his debut record.
  
  "I'm so used to writing dreadfully sad music," he explained to NME. "I love writing sad music and I write mostly sad songs. But I purposely wanted to put out 'Overdrive' right now because I wanted to just spread a bit of joy. This was a song that I found myself listening to over and over, just for fun."
• Written by Gray alongside Tobias Jesso Jr. (Adele's "When We Were Young," Niall Horan's "Nice To Meet Ya") and the Miami production duo Monsters & Strangerz (Dua Lipa's "Break My Heart," Justin Bieber's "Anyone"), this song finds the singer diving into a romantic relationship.
  
  "With 'Overdrive,' all I wanted to do was give people just a form of escapism," he said. "The song is about losing your inhibitions and just doing exactly what you want to do in a given moment, even if it's a little bit reckless."
• Gray told Apple Music how the COVID pandemic drove him to come up with an upbeat song about living in the moment. "I wrote 'Overdrive' to escape reality," he said. "I've spent the entire past year moping around alone in my house. I wanted to make something to get me to dance, something to belt in the shower."
• The writing session for "Overdrive" was the first time Conan Gray met Tobias Jesso Jr. He told Billboard they hit it off straight away. "We were very much in the mood to write something that would make us feel good and want to dance around," he said. "I think he and I both tend to be quite sad when it comes to music [laughs], so I think two negatives made a positive this time."
• The video, which was directed by Gray and Dillon Matthew, is a post-pandemic fantasy where the singer races through the night with a woman.
  
  Gray said he has this thing where he sees a beautiful stranger and starts imagining spending the rest of his life with them. "The house we'd live in, the reckless, wild life we'd have, the alternate reality I could live if I had the courage to go up and talk to them," he explained. "That's what the 'Overdrive' video is, it's a fantasy. It's the daydream I have every time somebody catches my eye on the street, the daydream I'm having every day I sit alone in my house during this pandemic."
• Conan Gray first came up with the song in the shower. Speaking with American Songwriter, he recalled humming the melody while washing his hair before coming up with the lyrics.
  
  "It's always me sitting around living my life, and then I'll think of something and write like a maniac wherever I am," he said. "I ended up writing the entire song in the shower. It usually starts with a kind a melody with the lyric in my head, and writing in weird places, or I'm thinking into my phone as fast as I can. Then I take it from there and finish out the songs on guitar."