Songfacts®:

• Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine wrote this song about a failed relationship - a common theme in his writing. He started writing it a few years before it was released on the band's second album, It Won't Be Soon Before Long, in 2007. By the time it came out, he assigned a different meaning to the song, saying it's about America's role in the War with Iraq.
  
  "There is so much going on in America at the moment," he told The Australian. "I hope we (the US) can dig ourselves out of this hole. There's a bunch of confusion going on in the world."
  
  His political interpretation is a stretch when you look at the lyrics, but it's his song and he can make it about anything he wants. Remember, though, that Maroon 5's previous album was Songs About Jane, which is chock full of... songs about a failed relationship (specifically between him and Jane). "Makes Me Wonder" was the lead single from It Won't Be Soon Before Long, so you can see why he'd want to shift the narrative away from ex-girlfriends and more to current events.
• The singles from Maroon 5's 2002 debut album were "Harder To Breathe," "This Love," "She Will Be Loved" and "Sunday Morning." They kept Maroon on the air and on the charts from the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2005. Instead of releasing more music right away they waited until 2007, so when "Makes Me Wonder" was issued as a single, there was a lot of demand.
  
  In it's fourth week on the Hot 100 (May 12, 2007), the song rose from #64 to #1, breaking the record for the biggest leap to the top in the history of that chart, surpassing the 52-1 leap of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" in October 2002. The record was broken by T.I.'s "Whatever You Like," when on the chart dated September 6, 2008 it jumped from #71 to #1.
• If you look in your attic you might find an old iPod with this song on it. It Won't Be Soon Before Long was the most downloaded album on iTunes in 2007, eventually selling over 2 million digital copies just in America. Amy Winehouse's Back to Black was second and Kanye West's Graduation third. The "Makes Me Wonder" single sold 3 million downloads in the US.
• "Makes Me Wonder" won the Grammy in 2008 for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. It was their third award, following wins for Best New Artist in 2005 and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for a live version of "This Love" in 2006.
  
  After that third win, Maroon 5 had to wonder why Grammy voters turned on them - they didn't win any more even as they inhabited the charts in the 2010s with hits like "Daylight," "Sugar" and "Girls Like You."
• Adam Levine got so good at spinning heartbreak into Gold records that his bandmate Jesse Carmichael quipped, "We need to get Adam back in a dysfunctional relationship pronto."
  
  Carmichael and Maroon 5's bass player, Mickey Madden, are credited as writers on "Makes Me Wonder" along with Adam Levine.
• Maroon 5 kept a lot of their older songs, including "Makes Me Wonder," in their setlists even as they racked up more hits. These golden oldies are always well received by fans, and the band has a strong connection with them because they were written before the group started using outside songwriters, a practice that started with their 2012 album Overexposed.