Songfacts®:

• Keyboardist Andy Fletcher referred to this song in an interview with Billboard magazine as, "an antidote to bubble-gum pop inappropriate for where we are in society at this moment."
• This song was officially debuted on February 21, 2009, when Depeche Mode performed it at the Echo Awards in Germany.
• According to the band's record label website, this song lyrically is about "comic reflections on a lifetime of mistakes, misdeeds and bad decisions."
• Martin Gore explained that this was chosen to be the lead single for Sounds of the Universe as, "it's quite different to anything we've released before. I don't know quite what category to put it in musically, but it's got a kind of rap feel to it. It's probably as close to R&B as we're ever going to sound."
• The B-side "Oh Well" is the first Depeche Mode track ever to be co-written by both Martin Gore and Dave Gahan. Gore told The Quietus about their collaboration: "It wasn't a real co-write because I had originally written the song as an instrumental but Dave heard it and liked it and he took it back to his hotel room and wrote some words and a melody over the top. It wasn't like we sat in a room and wrote it together. But I guess it is interesting in as much as it is the first time we've co-written a song."
• Gore explained the album title in publicity materials: "We've used a lot of old analogue synthesizers and drum machines, which conjure up image of the universe and space travel somehow. We've gone back to a lot of old vintage gear, without making the album sound too retro. It's like yesterday's future. That's why for me it's a perfect album title."
• This was Depeche Mode's eighth #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. As a consequence the English band drew level with the Pet Shop Boys for the most #1s by a group on that listing.
• The video for this song was directed by Patrick Daughters, who also directed the innovative video for Feist's "1234." In the clip, a man is trapped in a car that is rolling out of control down a city street.