Songfacts®:

• Scouting For Girls are a trio from north-west London comprising vocalist and guitarist Roy Stride, bass player Greg Churchouse and drummer Peter Ellard. This is the first single from their second album, Everybody Wants To Be On TV, which Stride explained to the Sunday Mail is "a heartfelt yet positive break-up song."
• Stride is Scouting for Girls wordsmith and he told Spinner UK about his songwriting: "I write a lot about falling in love and breaking up. I don't know who said it, but someone once said the best songs are about the first five minutes and the last five minutes of a relationship, which I agree with. Most people have been there and I try to harness that, but I think about a situation from a character's perspective. The emotions will be ones I've experienced, so there's a truth there, but it doesn't have to be what I'm going through at that moment - I'd be so miserable if it was like that. Can you imagine? If you had to go through tremendous pain to be a decent artist, you'd have to live an awful life.
  
  Crime writers don't have to be murderers do they? That's the really creative challenge for me, to look through the eyes of a character but for it to still be personal. When people listen to your music, they have to be able to connect with it and feel what you're singing about. And that's why people like us, because we're normal blokes who sing about things everyone can understand."
• This was the first UK #1 single for the London trio. They'd previously chalked up three top 10 singles in 2007 and 2008, "She's So Lovely" "Elvis Ain't Dead" and "Heartbeat."
• The song was arguably the first UK #1 single from a British guitar band since Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" reigned at the top spot in 2008.
• Stride explained to CMU how he creates a track: "It all starts with the song. And that all starts with the hook. Whether that's a great lyric or a melodic or rhythmic hook. You need ten great hooks to create a strong song. These hooks come like magic whenever I play an instrument or sit down to write. Putting all these hooks together and building the song is the hard part. Sometimes it can take years."
• Stride told Digital Spy that no one expected this to reach #1, not even the band's record company. He said: "When we first played it to the label, they didn't want it to be a single. (Then) It was going to be the set-up song thinking it might go Top 20. I remember walking my dog on the Sunday and I checked iTunes on my phone and then it went to #1. It was a very surreal experience."
• The song's music video was filmed at London City Airport in England. Roy Stride came up with its concept, which was to show everyday things such as saying hello and waving goodbye to loved ones on travels. Stride considers the first version they filmed to be probably the best one the band have ever done, but their label thought it was too depressing. He told Digital Spy: "So they doubled the budget and went and filmed it again and had loads of people hugging, and it really ruined the video."