Songfacts®:

• "Toothache" might sound like a song about bad molars, but it's really about the things that fester when you don't deal with them: feelings, regrets, trauma, and yes, maybe a bit of plaque. The song takes the familiar ache of a neglected cavity and turns it into a metaphor for emotional decay.
• The way James Marriott ignored the pain of his toothache offers some clues to his personality. He said it was the result of "things that happened to me in childhood," telling The Sun it "is probably the most damning song I've written about myself."
• Marriott wrote "Toothache" in the green room at Chalk in Brighton with his band before playing his show.
• This is not the first song about dental matters. Owl City's "Dental Care" is his fun, synth-pop reflection about a trip to the dentist, and The Beatles' "Savoy Truffle" is about tooth decay from eating too many sweet things, inspired by Eric Clapton's love of candy.
• The song is the sixth out of 11 tracks on Marriott's album Don't Tell the Dog. The first half of the album details the playfulness of his childhood, and then it moves into adulthood issues within the context of what happened to him when he was younger.
• Who is the dog in the album title? "The dog is called Jasper, my childhood golden retriever who passed away in my early adolescence," Marriott revealed. "Don't Tell the Dog stemmed from leaving your childhood self behind and not wanting to tell that symbol of innocence everything that's happened since."
  
  The album cover is a clay model of Jasper.