Songfacts®:

• Best known for his house music-based tunes, "Play" finds Jax Jones adding elements of garage, soul and house into the mix. The DJ wrote the song with Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander, who also croons the vocals over the uplifting dance beat.
• "How long 'til you play me the song that will make me belong to you?" Alexander questions at the start of the track. He goes on to croon about his longing to spend the night dancing with the person who has caught his eye across the dancefloor.
  
  "I wrote loads of ideas and then we picked the ones we liked and made the song out of it," said Alexander. "I love dance music because it makes me feel invincible, but it has tension in the lyrics, so I tried to create a bit of that – like how long till you play me the damn song! I liked the idea of a track that could make you fall in love. You're so obsessed with hearing it that it's like you've been hypnotized – I wanna hear that song!"
• This was Jones' first single to feature male lead vocals since 2016's "House Work," which was sung by Mike Dunn and MNEK. After that track, Jones released a string of songs with female stars, including Raye, Demi Lovato, Stefflon Don, Ina Wroldsen and Mabel.
• Two of Jones' previous collaborators, MNEK and Raye, supply additional vocals. MNEK also has a writing credit, along with frequent Clean Bandit collaborator Mark Ralph.