Songfacts®:

• This haunting tubular bells-assisted track finds Murs writing a letter to a recent ex. It is one of three songs on Right Place, Right Time that he penned with Ed Drewett, co-writer of The Wanted's "All Time Low" and "Glad You Came." A fellow singer-songwriter from Essex with mutual pals, Drewett was a natural songwriting partner for Murs. "Being friends helped, as we spoke for ages before writing Dear Darlin'" said Murs. "We sat there for hours, going over old relationships and recalling their scenarios."
  
  "It's about writing to someone to tell them how I feel about losing someone," he added.
• The song's music video was filmed in Los Angeles and shows Murs sitting alone in an apartment thinking about a recent relationship split and recalling all the times they had together. Murs told fans that the song and visual is a chance for them to see his "more sensitive" side.
• Digital Spy asked Olly Murs if the song is based on personal experience? He replied: "I suppose in a way it is. One of my ex-girlfriends, we used to write a lot of letters to each other because she lived in Leeds and I was in Essex. Whenever I knew I wasn't going to see her for a while, I'd write her a letter - and I think people have lost sight of doing that now. I remember writing little love letters at school to girls, and we decided for this song that the lyrics should be based on me writing a letter."
• Murs revealed to 4Music that Eminem's single "Stan" was an inspiration for this song. "I always remembered the idea of Marshall Mathers and Eminem when he did 'Stan' - he was writing a letter," he explained. "That was one of the ideas we had for this song. We said, 'The song should be called 'Dear Darlin'' and it should be the start of writing a letter, that would be so cool'."
  
  He added: "This song was kind of a way of showing people that you don't have to text or tweet or Facebook. The old-school way of doing things is writing letters and I used to write letters to my girlfriends."
• Murs recorded a different version with French recording artist Alizée for the French market, which was later included on the Special Edition of Right Place Right Time. Olly told Glamour magazine: "I felt it was really important to do some different features in different countries and when my French label suggested this I thought it was a great idea for the song. I love the French language and it makes the song sound a lot sexier."
• Sally Barker, the runner-up of the 2014 UK edition of The Voice, sung this song during the show's final. Released as a single, it reached #46 on the UK chart.