Songfacts®:

• "Union Station" is Overpass' ode to 20-something anxiety and the nagging feeling that everyone else has life figured out. While friends buy houses, settle down, or hit the town, the lyric captures the nagging doubt of wondering if you are on the right path, with a train station serving as the ultimate escape hatch.
  
  "I've always romanticised train stations as the place you run to when you've mentally checked out, even if you're doing it with a half-smile and a bit of self-awareness," vocalist and guitarist Max Newbold explained.
• The song originated with an overheard cliché. "'Union Station' started with hearing someone say 'it's a dog-eat-dog world' like it was just normal," Newbold recalled. "That idea of life being one big competition freaked me out a bit. I never wanted to fight for jobs or houses or compare myself to everyone else."
  
  Bassist India "Indie" Armstrong felt that exact tension watching people around her move on. "As a band, we're approaching our mid-20s. Some of our friends are buying houses and settling down, some are out every night," she told The Sun. "It's difficult to feel like you're doing the 'right' thing."
  
  That urge to dodge the comparison game was a big part of what drove all four members to commit to the band full-time.
• Written by Newbold, Armstrong, guitarist Elliot Rawlings, and drummer Jake Bishop alongside Rich Turvey, "Union Station" leads off their debut album, Elsewhere, Always. Turvey, whose credits include work with Blossoms, Courteeners, The Coral, and Rachel Chinouriri, also produced the track.
• As the opening song on Elsewhere, Always, "Union Station" introduces the record's core theme: the urge to be anywhere but here. "The theme of direction runs through the album, whether it manifests in reflecting on the past to escape or reaching out for a new destination," Armstrong explained. "It can be hard not to feel detached from the present moment and desensitised to what's going on around you in modern life. Elsewhere, Always felt like the most succinct way of summing up that feeling."