Songfacts®:

• "Destiny" is rooted in the heartbreak and confusion that followed the breakdown of Ellie Goulding's marriage to art dealer Caspar Jopling. Goulding leans into her heartbreak and starts to reclaim a sense of joy that previously laid dormant.
  
  Goulding felt empowered after putting all of herself into the song. "Recording this was like a catharsis, it made me feel so much better - like the prize was me all along," she said. "Instead of putting my everything into these men, this song was my first feeling of straight-up escape and empowerment. When I heard the track, I was in love with it."
• Goulding co-wrote the song with Jack Rochon, Livvi Franc and the song's producer, Kurtis Wells.
  
  Jack Rochon is a Canadian producer, songwriter and classically trained multi-instrumentalist whose resumé also includes work on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter album.
  
  "I first heard this track when I had recently separated from my husband. This was at a really turbulent time for me because I was trying to navigate what felt like a separation of all separations," Goulding told NME. "It was a marriage, not just a relationship. I didn't know what else to do other than make music. So I saw Jack Rochon, who was producing mostly trap music at the time, playing guitar on Instagram in such a beautiful way that I was immediately fixated. So I DM'ed him saying I wanted to work with him, and we met up that same day to start the journey."
• Kurtis Well's production combines atmospheric textures with Goulding's signature ethereal vocals, culminating in a triumphant moment with choir and strings.
  
  "The idea of adding the choir and strings at the end was for it to become a triumphant moment of freedom, like jumping off a cliff. To me it sounds like surrender," said Goulding. "It sounds like let it happen. That's why it is called Destiny, it sounds like what will be will be and accepting it."
• "Destiny" echoes the emotional DNA of Goulding's 2012 hit "Anything Could Happen." In both tracks, Goulding turns heartbreak into a doorway rather than a dead end. "Anything Could Happen" suggests the world can rebuild itself in unexpected ways; "Destiny" shows that she can, too.
• While Goulding wrote "Anything Could Happen" after starting a relationship with Dubstep producer Skrillex, the recording of "Destiny" coincided with her finding love again with American model and personal trainer Beau Minniear. The very cinematic video for "Destiny" was directed by Floria Sigismondi and documents Goulding's relationship with Minniear. Its romantic and sensual imagery was inspired by classic cinema, with references to Wuthering Heights and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up.