Songfacts®:

• This album closer was inspired by an incident when Elbow singer Guy Garvey was walking to the studio with his iPod on shuffle when it struck him that the last four songs he'd listened to were all by dead people - Jackson C Frank, Spike Jones, John Lennon and Cole Porter. It sparked the thought that Elbow's tunes could still be around after the five bandmates had passed away. "These recordings were all that was left of them," he told The Observer: "I put them down as verse, then I thought: 'It's a bit clumsy, a bit bludgeoning.' I thought that, rather than describe that sentiment, why not just put the message in there? So it's called 'Dear Friends' and it's a real casual note from when I was in Tennessee in the middle of a tour, telling my friends I was thinking of them that day and it made me feel at home."