During an interview with The Independent, Guy Garvey explained that the line in the song that reads, "I live and die by the hot and cold in strangers' eyes", refers to his sensitivity regarding what others think of him. "It's not since I became famous, it's something that's always been with me that I assumed everybody always had: a guy on the street looks at me the wrong way, and a big part of me assumes that he's right," he said. "It was a bit of a revelation to me, in my late thirties, to find out that not everybody gives a f--k what other people think about them!"

"I thought people were just better or worse at hiding it, when in fact an awful lot of them don't care, and are up for a ruck," Garvey added. "But some part of me assumes that everybody else is right, apart from me. I think you'd call it an over-sensitivity to people's opinions."

The song also references Garvey's breakup with journalist and novelist Emma Jane Unsworth when he sings: "I cannot stay where all the broken plans were made." Garvey told The Sun. "There is a point I won't cross which is why Emma and I separated. But in a nutshell it's because we wanted different things. Nobody wronged anyone. It just came to a natural end."

Garvey told Q magazine that the lyric about running away to New York after breaking up with Emma was a true story. "I went to a hotel for the night in Manchester and I flew to New York the next day," he said. "It was partly to re-establish my relationship with the city and partly to flee the crime scene."

"It does feel like that, an empty house," he added. "My knee-jerk reaction was: get me the f--k out of here, one away as far as possible. But you can't outrun things like that."