Songfacts®:

• A trip to a Doug Wheeler art exhibition at a New York gallery served as inspiration for this song's optimistic lyrics. When Ellie Goulding found herself in a room bathed in a relaxing, bright blue light, the experience served as an enlightenment.
  
  Everything is heightened now
  It's looking so much brighter now
  I was lost and now I'm found
  Fell off the merry-go-round
  
  Goulding was homesick for England at the time and tired of being on the road rather than in one place. She explained to The Sun it was "a period of real self-discovery, so when I saw this blue, I had this feeling of happiness."
• Goulding explained to the BBC that when she walked into the abstract painter's light show, "It completely took over," and she felt its warmth. The next day she got together with her engineer and told him, "I really want to write about this brightest blue that I had." The lyrics quickly rolled off her tongue.
  
  Once the producers Joseph Kearns and Jim Eliot had added the strings and other bells and whistles, Goulding listened to the gospelly tune and burst into tears. "I don't get emotional at my own music like that," she said, "but that song just feels like a new beginning."
• Don't you worry about the future
  'Cause this is the blue evolution
  
  Goulding told Apple Music that "the blue evolution" is her "version of a happy, peaceful place." She explained: "It's about getting yourself to a place of harmony where even when bad stuff does come along and you find yourself in hard times, you can deal with it in a very different way because you've discovered this harmony in yourself."
• I finally see you're my greatest
  You're my greatest revelation
  
  The lyric, "You're my greatest revelation," is a reference to an energy rather than a person. Goulding explained: "Like my greatest revelation was like the fact that I've reached this point of ultimate independence. It's so crucial and it really is a recurring theme of the album. And I was in such a good place that I think that it was like a hyper kind of happiness."
• Though we often associate blue with being depressed, it's actually quite a joyful-looking color. The album title is inspired by Goulding's belief she can still flourish when things are difficult. She explained to OK! magazine:
  
  "There definitely is a melancholy tone to the album with the lyrics and it's certainly not like, 'Let's all forget our problems.' It's kind of my way of having this illumination that felt like I could prosper in the sadder times. That's what I've always managed to do - to get myself out of those sad times by writing and by getting my feelings out."