Songfacts®:

• Tim Rice-Oxley says of this song in Q Magazine October 2007: "A very different song for us. The drums make the song. It's very primal. About the terror of dying alone."
• Tim Rice-Oxley (from Podcast 2, May 22, 2006): "Atlantic was the first thing that we recorded for the record, and it was actually gonna be a b-side. It was weird - it was just a very very scrappy demo. To be honest, I don't think any of us had really thought that it could be a really great song, or a great piece of music or anything; but Richard (Hughes) started playing this weird thing on the drums - we had some drums from the demo and he started playing out-of-time with them, sort of half a beat behind them. And it created this weird, incredible drum pattern which was funky and industrial, and it just brought the whole song to life and it immediately started to sound amazing. It's a piece of music that I'm really really proud, and I think we're all really really proud of as a band. It's a great example of a piece of music that we've all contributed to, and it wouldn't be the song that it is unless we all put something special into it. The reason it's the first song on the record, is because it's got such an incredible atmosphere to it, and I guess it's about having a terror of being alone - it sets the mood of the record really well, both musically and lyrically."
• A video was filmed for this song directed by Irvine Walsh, the Scottish author of Trainspotting.