Songfacts®:

• Born out of pandemic isolation, "Begin Again" was the first spark for Jessie Ware's That! Feels Good! album. Inspired by sun-drenched memories of Brazil, the song offers a five-minute escape from lockdown doldrums, blending Ware's signature soulful disco with a samba-infused beat. It's pure celebration, a sonic postcard from a paradise yearned for in the confines of Zoom calls.
• Ware wrote the song with her producer James Ford along with songwriters Danny Parker and Shungudzo. All three previously collaborated with Ware on her 2020 album What's Your Pleasure? Ford also worked on her 2014 album Tough Love.
  
  "On a miserable afternoon during lockdown, James Ford zoomed Shungudzo and Danny Parker in Los Angeles," said Ware. "They were just waking up, it was already dark in London. Frustrated yet completely focused, we set about writing in a new – and unnatural - way over the internet."
  
  "Dreaming of human touch, escapes to Brazil, beach bodies, holiday romances, all of it!" she added. "I absolutely adore this song."
• "Begin Again" contains the highest note Ware has ever sung. "I'm obsessed with harmonies and backing vocals and creating these big moments that just build up, so I was riffing over the song and I just went for it," she told the BBC. "James [Ford] looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I was like, 'I know? Too much?' And he just said, 'No, it's hysterical and brilliant!'"
• The song showcases horns from Kokoroko, a London-based eight-piece musical group who play a fusion of jazz and Afrobeat.
• Bound by shadows and bathed in velvet, Jessie Ware navigates a world of contrasts in the "Begin Again" video. Directed by Charlie Di Placido, she glides between dimly lit intimacy and vibrant warmth, embodying the song's themes of reinvention and liberation.
• That! Feels Good! received widespread critical acclaim. It was included in various year-end best albums of 2023 lists and shortlisted at the Mercury Prize for Album of the Year.
  
  The Sun newspaper named it their Best Album of 2023. They said: "Jessie Ware's fifth record was an album we all needed. Joyous, anthemic disco as elegant and classy as the lady herself."