Frontman Kelly Jones told the story of the song to The Sun: "'Fight or Flight' was one of the songs on the album that I wrote on the piano. I don't really play the piano but my daughter was having lessons and I was, like, 'Right, I'd better pull my finger out here."

"And so I wrote My Her, Fight or Flight, Sunny and a couple of others on the piano. It's about those experiences in life when you've got things that are big in front of you and you want to run from them. We've had that a lot in our career, and I have in my personal life, so that was one of those songs that wrote itself. It's deep but is big in a simple way."

This was one of several tracks on Keep the Village Alive that were penned a few years previously and were ready for Graffiti On The Train but didn't fit in that group of songs. ("C'est La Vie" and "Sunny" also were penned in that period). Jones told HMV.com: "It was like picking a football team, you get all your best players and then you pick the best 11 for that day."