Songfacts®:

• "Give Me The Reason" finds James Bay singing of a close friendship that's reached a crossroads. Their relationship was once a loving and meaningful one, but now they're barely communicating. Bay still hopes to retrieve the situation and urges his mate to give him a reason why they can't give it one more try. "It's a song about seeing that the sun's going down on a relationship, but believing that it doesn't have to be the end," said the singer. "It's about believing that there's still a chance you can make it work."
• Bay compared the bittersweet power ballad to a movie scene where the audience is rooting for the character that's fighting to stop his relationship from falling apart. "After I finished writing this song I kept seeing that scene and it was always washed in a warm, sunset glow," he said. "Like that moment between day and night, between the end of one thing and the beginning of another. 'Give Me The Reason' is a song for that moment. When it looks as though the sun is setting on a relationship, when your heart's in your throat and the desire to be together is stronger than ever."
• Bay wrote the song with Irish singer-songwriter Foy Vance and Gabe Simon, the guitarist in the Nashville alternative rock band Kopecky. Simon's other credits include Lana Del Rey's "Blue Banisters" and Jessie Murph's "Pray."
• Simon also produced the song, basing his instrumentation on Bay's directive to make it feel huge and emotional. "I want it to explode with energy when I play it live," Bay said. "It's about feeling your heart beat fast and love racing through your veins."
• Bay plays the acoustic and electric guitar. The rest of the instrumentation is:
  
  Drums: Ian Fitchuk
  Organ: Gabe Simon
  Piano: Alex Tomkins & Gabe Simon
  Synthesizer: Gabe Simon
  Keyboards: Gabe Simon
  Bass: Gabe Simon
  Background Vocals: Gabe Simon & Foy Vance
  Percussion: Gabe Simon and Ian Fitchuk