The English singer and songwriter Nick Mulvey is a founding member of the 2008 Mercury Prize nominated band Portico Quartet. This is his second single after leaving the group in 2011 to focus on a solo career.

Mulvey told The Cambridge News that the song's title is meaningless. "It's meant to be a noise a child would make," he explained. "It might relate to a bird sound too. It's actually quite similar to the noise they make in France for a cockerel. You know how we say 'cock-a-doodle-do'? Over there it's like that Cucurucu."

"At its core it's my adaptation of DH Lawrence's poem Piano," Mulvey added. "The poem depicts a child under the piano, smiling as its mother sings, so I thought it would be lovely to have a song within the song. So I'm singing in her voice, really, and then I got the chorus about 'yearning to belong', so it's not just putting his words to my music. At first I was bothered by that, because I didn't think I should've changed it, but I've got used to it."

The song's music was shot on Nihiwatu Beach on the island of Sumba in Indonesia in March 2013. It was filmed by National Geographic director James Morgan whilst he was shooting a documentary about the practice of ritualised violence and local esoteric beliefs and commissioned by Mulvey himself. Morgan told Amelia's Magazine: "The opening shot is actually of a shaman gathering sea worms at dawn from the ocean, the colour of the sea worms serves as an augur of the coming harvest. For 'Cucurucu' we decided to focus just on the story of these two boys riding their horses at the beach."