Songfacts®:

• "Vertigo" is about the aftermath of a breakup. Griff explores the different emotions someone might feel after a relationship ends, such as sadness, anger, confusion, and fear. She also acknowledges the universal fear of love, which can be both exhilarating and terrifying.
  
  You're scared of heights, that's vertigo
  You wanted lights, go see a show
  You ran away, that's touch and go
  You're scared of love, well, aren't we all?
  
  Griff is feeling dizzy and overwhelmed by the emotions of the breakup. She tries to distract herself from her pain by going out and having fun. Ultimately, she's trying to avoid dealing with their feelings by running away from them.
  
  Love is a powerful emotion that can make us feel vulnerable and exposed. It can also lead to heartbreak and pain. But despite the risks, love is also a beautiful and life-affirming experience.
• Griff penned "Vertigo" in between tours when she took herself away in the middle of nowhere to write songs. She landed up in singer-songwriter Imogen Heap's house. "It has this massive spiral staircase in the middle of it," Griff told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders, "and I think that's what ended up subconsciously inspiring the lyric 'vertigo.'"
  
  "I think I ended up writing about the word vertigo, more on an emotional level," she continued. "Like when you think about the world spinning really fast and always feeling about upside down. I think that's kind of the context that I used vertigo on this song."
• There's a darkness to "Vertigo" that Griff hasn't tapped into very often. She still wrote it in a major key because she wanted to create a song that was both sad and hopeful. The major key is typically associated with happiness and positivity, but it can also be used to create a sense of bittersweet.
  
  "I've always thought of it like a roller coaster and it feels like it's always building and there's this sense of tension and anxiety," Griff told Saunders of "Vertigo." "And then it like crescendos at this massive bridge and then release it. So it's definitely like an emotional whirlwind."
• Griff co-wrote and co-produced "Vertigo" with North Londoner Sam Tsang (Maisie Peters' "This Is On You," Stefflon Don's "Phone Down"). Tsang also co-produced Griff's collaboration with Sigrid, "Head On Fire."
• Griff teased the release of "Vertigo" on her official Instagram account on June 25, 2023. She released it as a single on July 31, 2023, but that wasn't the end of the story. One fan, none other than Taylor Swift, hopped on Instagram on September 4, 2023, to spread the word. She shared a screenshot of the single cover and rallied her army of followers, which number in the hundreds of millions. "Damn Griff I love this one," she wrote above the artwork.
• When Griff suffered from writer's block, "Vertigo" was her breakthrough. "Honestly, my brain was so frazzled, I wasn't sure anything was good and I would just write stuff, scrap it, write stuff, scrap it, and it really kind of tortured me a little bit," she told Apple Music's Rebecca Judd. "It's cheesy to say, but this song kind of saved me from that moment."