Songfacts®:

• Singer Dan Gillespie-Sells set this love story around the fall of the Berlin Wall. He told the Daily Mirror January 11, 2008: "I remember very clearly the Berlin Wall coming down when I was 12. There was a real sense of joy, a sense that everything could change and that all the terror would be lifted. Obviously it didn't - a different kind of terror just replaced it. The idea of the song was that in relationships and in life generally, you do quite often go in circles. It started off like The Who's "Pinball Wizard," but ended up as a dance track."
• This was released as the first single from the band's album Join With Us. In an interview on the band's website, drummer Paul Stewart was asked why "I Thought It Was Over" was picked: "Well, it was difficult - everyone was suggesting different songs as potential singles. That's a good problem to have, though. But even when we started work on 'I Thought It Was Over' in the big house, we thought it would definitely be the opening song to the album and potentially the first single. It's really upbeat and exciting and, on the face of it, quite unlike anything we've done before, although I think it definitely sounds like a Feeling song too."
• In the same interview Stewart was asked about the plot for the song's video: "It's a little bit inspired by Close Encounters or ET. We're playing in a dilapidated house and some strange goings on are afoot. Things shake and electronics go weird, as if we are being visited by some other-worldly beings." He added: "The tune is very upbeat and dramatic, so we wanted a video that reflected that. And it's a performance-based video, to re-introduce the band."
• Frontman Dan Gillespie-Sells told the Sun newspaper February 8, 2008: "The original version of that goes on for 25 minutes. It was never meant to be a Pop song. One day I want to produce a movie soundtrack or a Pop Opera. Not anything pompous like some of the rock operas of the '70s but a real story about real people singing."
• Gillespie-Sells also told the Sun: "The dance side of the single comes from when we were in the Alps. We used to have this dance set we'd play at 1am. Everyone was pilled off their brains while we played this HI-nrg along with the DJ."
• Gillespie Sells spoke to Pop Justice about this track's 'kitchen sink' production: "We weren't really conscious of whether the single was over-produced, we just wanted to have a bit of fun with the record. We had lots of synths and all sorts of s--t; it's all over the place that record. Jimmy Iovine, who runs Interscope Records and is one of the most powerful people in the music industry, said to us at the auditions for the European version of the Pussycat Dolls, 'you know what you're doing with those harmonies and those crazy things you do? I want you to do it but put it on steroids'. Which we took as a good bit of advice; we'll be pushing things even further in the future."