Songfacts®:

• This disco-influenced rocker features Mark Owen singing in a sharp falsetto above booming drums and punky guitars. Its apocalyptic lyrics were inspired by Robbie Williams' interest in conspiracy theories.
• The song ends with a 1961 speech about press freedom by John F. Kennedy.
• Take That debuted the song live for the first time during their performance at the 2010 Royal Variety performance on December 9, 2010 but the show wasn't transmitted on television until December 16th.
• "SOS" is the Morse-code signal (…---…) used by shipping and the like in distress to summon immediate aid, hence any urgent appeal for help. This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905. It was recommended at the Radio Telegraph Conference the following year and officially adopted as the worldwide standard in 1908. The letters are simply a convenient and readily recognizable combination, and are not an abbreviation, although they have subsequently been held to stand for "save our souls" or "save our ship."
  
  The phrase "SOS" has frequently been adopted as a metaphor in songs describing love in distress. Apart from Take That's song other tunes using the signal in its title include hit singles by Abba, Jonas Brothers, Jordin Sparks and Rihanna.
• While writing the lyrics, Williams tried to capture the panic of a world gone mad. "For me it was an amalgamation of internet conspiracy chat rooms," he explained. "Is there a global warming or isn't there a global warming? And, is there gonna be a 2012 cause it feels like everything's speeding to Armageddon, what are these terrorists? Why do terrorists want us? Are we safe getting on the tube? Is the tube somewhere we can go? Or at the airport we have to take our shoes off and it's the shoes and then do we… we're untrusting of everybody and the panic's sort of tenfold and getting quicker and quicker."
• The chorus came together naturally as the band was playing around with the lyrics. Owen recalled: "When we got to the chorus I remember it was just everybody went the same way with the same melody. It was like each way everything came to everyone. After the first 'It's an SOS' everybody went 'It's an SOS. It's an SOS. Oh yes, oh yes' it was like it was just written, done. First time it came out of our mouth there was a chorus."