Songfacts®:

• This upbeat tune about falling for a girl is the first single from Jason Derulo's third album. The track was produced by Ammo (Katy Perry, Kesha, Leona Lewis), and got its first play on Ryan Seacrest's LA radio show on April 16, 2013.
  
  At 128 BPM, it's a dance tune, but unlike most EDM-influenced songs of the time, it doesn't use instrumental or vocal breaks - the structure is the one most common to pop music: verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus (A-B-A-B-C-B). That first chorus doesn't appear until 49 seconds into the song, which is much longer than most hits of this genre wait. The outro is also a very patient 23 seconds long, providing room to breathe at the end of the track.
• Derulo told MTV News that the song's joyful vibe is his reaction to being injured and fracturing his neck back in January 2012. "I came off of a near-death experience, and it really helped me to grow up and change up a little bit," he explained. "I feel like I'm a different person. I'm a little more grown-up, and my music will always match that. So it's a Jason Derulo that is a little more sleek, a little more refined."
• The song explores the situation where two friends decide they want more from a platonic relationship. It was written with Jason Derulo's girlfriend Jordin Sparks in mind as the pair were themselves friends before they became lovers. DeRulo told the Kyle and Jackie O Show on Australia's 2DayFM that these kinds of relationships can be altered in an instant. "It's just that little moment," he said. "Sometimes it takes that one little embrace, that one little kiss or that one little drink to change everything."
• DeRulo said in a making-of the tune's video: "It initially started off as a party song. The feeling of the song is very up-tempo, it's very fun, uplifting - but I didn't want to talk about a party. I wanted to talk about something that was I was going through in my life, something that was personal."
• Asked by Digital Spy to compare the song to an animal, DeRulo replied: "I'd say this song is like a cheetah. It's fast, it has that energy but it's still sexy-sleek. It sounds expensive."
• The video sees Derulo performing an energetic dance routine and a head stand a year after injuring his neck. He admitted to Digital Spy: "It was important to me. I feel like the injury happened to me for a reason. I made sure that I came back with something different - I wanted to up everything that I care about. Hopefully that shows in the music and visuals."
• Jordin Sparks admitted to Parade magazine that she turns gleeful every time she hears this song. "When 'The Other Side' comes on, I get this big, cheesy grin on my face," she declared. "I know he was thinking about me when he wrote it."