Songfacts®:

• Oh Land is a Danish singer-songwriter and record producer whose birth name is Nanna Øland Fabricius. Daughter of an opera singer mother and an organist father, Oh Land is a former ballet student who decided to adopt a music career after an injury caused by a slipped disc and spinal fracture forced her to give up dancing. Oh Land's debut album, Fauna, was released in her native Denmark on November 10, 2008 by Danish independent label Fake Diamond Records. She worked with producers Dan Carey, Dave McCracken and Pharrell Williams for her self-titled follow-up, which also served as her debut disc in the United States. The album was released on March 14, 2011 in Europe and the following day in the US.
• Oh Land explained the song's meaning to MTV News; " 'Son of a Gun' I wrote in LA. It's a love story about being in a relationship with a person who's kind of destructive, but you keep coming back because you can't let it go. And then I liked that it was also a metaphor for how we orbit around the sun."
  
  She added, "The sun is a really beautiful thing: a sunset, a sunrise is spectacular. But it's also something we need to protect ourselves against, because it can burn you and it can be dangerous."
• Oh Land made her US television debut performing this song on Late Show with David Letterman on March 2, 2011. A few weeks later, on March 24th, she popped up again to play the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
• The song's music video was shot in 2010 in Brooklyn and features two different looks. One with the singer looking dark and gaunt, the other with Oh Land sporting flowing hair. "I wanted the video to show the two different states that you can get in when you are in love with someone," she explained to MTV News.