Songfacts®:

• This tender love song was inspired by Paul Weller's wife. He told The Sun: "it could have been a very straight-ahead love song because it starts off with solo voice and piano, but then it's got all these little twists and changes in it."
  
  Paul Weller married in 2010 his former backing singer Hannah Andrews. She gave birth to their baby twin sons Bowie and John-Paul on January 14, 2012.
• Paul Weller expanded on the song to Mojo: "It's hard to write a good love song, without it being slushy and clichéd. It's probably been said before, but we're trying to find ways of retelling the story."
  
  "I love this one. I think the whole sound an arrangement on it makes it for me. I wrote it on the piano, and it's something that I'd been working on for at least a year."
  
  "It's a straightforward love song, but it's got some other little abstract bits in it as well. That line, 'Time passing by, time on the wind'... That's just laziness to be honest with you (grins). I couldn't think of anything else to report. But, I mean, I could count on two hands, or maybe three hands, the amount of my songs that I think are absolutely perfect – I couldn't have done anything different, I wouldn't change a thing. 'Going My Way' is one of them."
• During an interview with The Guardian, Weller shared his opinion that he's written "three perfect songs" during his career. He named the trio as The Jam's 1979 single "Strange Town," his 1995 Stanley Road track "Wings Of Speed" and this song.