Songfacts®:

• The title track of Paul Weller's 16th solo album is about how music can get you through the bad times. "It's just an ode to music really - about how music has shaped and defined us and educated us, how it's changed our worlds," Weller told Uncut magazine. "I'm still enthralled by pop and the way that it affects us. It's a window to a whole way of understanding your life. And I really do think it's undervalued, especially with streaming, and Tory ministers telling people in the arts that they should retrain. The arts have given us all so much. Take that away and what even are we? Music and art elevates us, so I think it should be held in more esteem."
  
• Paul Weller wrote the song with his longtime producer, Stan Kybert. "We started with the backing track, which Stan put together at his place," he said. "I jammed over that and then Stan would cut it up and rearrange some of those bits so it was almost like we were sampling ourselves."
• As Weller worked on the song with Kybert, it brought to mind '90s West Coast hip-hop. He said during a Paul Weller News track by track, the "brilliant, heavy bassline" came from his thinking about Cypress Hill, so they started "doing something that sounds like a DJ Muggs production."
• Paul Weller told Uncut he titled the album after this song because it sums up the record. "There's 12 really fat songs on it, so I guess that's what I was thinking. They feel meaty and chunky and melodic."
• Fat Pop (Volume 1) debuted at #1 on the UK's albums chart, Weller's sixth visit to the summit as a solo artist. He previously reached the top of the chart as a solo artist with 1995's Stanley Road, 2002's Illumination, 2008's 22 Dreams, 2012's Sonik Kicks, and 2020's On Sunset. Weller also peaked at #1 with The Jam's The Gift and Style Council's Our Favourite Shop.
• Paul Weller told Mojo magazine the song is his love letter to music's lifesaving qualities. "Music has been my most reliable friend - and I am blessed with many great friends," he explained. "Music's a spiritual force, it covers so much ground as a way of informing us, making us question things. It's been my whole life. Everything has been governed by it."