Songfacts®:

• In 1984, Phil Bailey and Phil Collins sang of an "easy lover" where they bemoaned their romantic interest who uses men and then dumps them. Here, Ellie Goulding has gotten involved with a guy who has a similar history of loving and leaving. She is aware of his reputation as a playa, but is "foolishly in love" with him and entreats the dude not to leave her heartbroken like the others.
• Big Sean adds his signature flow to the summer pop banger. He takes on the role of the "easy lover," telling Goulding his feelings for her are genuine and he's changed his ways (yeah, right).
• This is the second collaboration between Ellie Goulding and Big Sean following the English singer's contribution to the rapper's 2013 track "You Don't Know."
• Goulding wrote "Easy Lover" in Los Angeles with Julia Michaels (Justin Bieber's "Sorry," Hailee Steinfeld's "Love Myself," Selena Gomez's "Lose You to Love Me"). It originated with a conversation between the pair about becoming infatuated by someone when you know they will never quite feel the same. "It's about going back to the same dangerous person to feel alive when you know they have hurt people again and again before you," Goulding explained.
• American pop wizard Greg Kurstin produced the song. He first collaborated with Goulding on her 2013 hit single "Burn" and later helmed seven of her Delirium tracks.
• Sophia Ray (Years & Years, Raye, Mabel) directed the haunting video, which sees Goulding take on an otherworldly creature that takes the form of humans.
• Ellie Goulding dropped a Four Tet remix about a month after the song was released. British post-rock and electronic musician Four Tet takes the original and transforms it into a pulsating club banger.
  
  Four Tet previously remixed Goulding's 2013 single "Burn," while the English songstress provided vocals on Four Tet's 2020 single '"Baby."
• Ellie Goulding wrote "Easy Lover" with Julia Michaels around 2017. At the time, one of them (they won't say who) was involved with a well-known womanizer. "We ended up with a song about going back to the same person who's hurt you and you think you can change them," Goulding told Billboard. "We always say we can change someone, and we can't."