Songfacts®:

• This was the fourth single and UK Top 40 debut for Muse. The trio of vocalist and guitarist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dom Howard met at school in Teignmouth, Devon and formed the band in 1994.
• Howard told Q magazine January 2000: "'Sunburn' is a song that happened in the studio about two years ago. I remember Matt playing around with a line on the piano and then on the guitar. Then the rest of us joined in. It's a song we still love playing live and always will. It's about moving into a new world, mentally or physically, realising it's not what you thought it was going to be. It was written at a time of change for us - we'd gone from painting and decorating and signing on, to flying first class to LA!"
• The music video stars a young Brooke Kinsella who later rose to fame playing Kelly Taylor on BBC's long-running soap opera, EastEnders. Kinsella and her family made headlines in the British press in 2008 following the stabbing to death of her half-brother, Ben.