Songfacts®:

• The strumming "Gloria" was released as the lead single from III. The songs on the record explore how addiction affects the fictional Sparks family. The subject matter is personal for Lumineers founders Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, who formed the band after Fraites' brother died of a heroin overdose.
• This track introduces Gloria, the family matriarch who inspired by an actual relative of Lumineers vocalist Wesley Schultz's that was an alcoholic. Here, he sings about a family relationship that struggles with substances. Schultz explained to Radio.com that "Gloria" is a song about "love between an addict and her family."
• The cinematic video follows the titular character played by actress Anna Cordell as she battles addiction. We see how her alcohol abuse impacts her husband and young child.
• The dysfunctional family dynamic is represented in the song's instrumentation, with the interplay between the guitar and piano mirroring a conversation between a mother and daughter. "'Gloria' opens with a guitar: That guitar is dominant, and that song is from the perspective of the child, basically the daughter to her mother, the mother being an alcoholic," Schultz explained in a 2020 interview with Atwood Magazine. "And then when you hear the piano take over, that's the mother's side of the story, and so it keeps going back and forth."
• In a 2019 interview with NPR, Schultz elaborated on the significance of the piano in the tune. "There's this almost a cartoonish piano that interrupts the guitar," he said. "Within the reality of being closely involved with an addict, there is a cartoonish nature to life. Like, you'll get a call and it's the most absurd thing you've ever heard. You can't even wrap your head around it. And there's a mania. There's a manic nature to that is found in that piano."
• It was important to Schultz to present both sides of the story in an honest way that didn't demonize the addict or minimize the feelings of the addict's family members. "I think that was the challenge: How do I not just say it from one perspective?" he told Atwood Magazine. "Because I think that's why it's so complicated. It's much easier to talk about just your side of it, or explain it in a more one-sided or one-dimensional way, but to try to be like, if the addict heard this song, would they feel like I did them justice? But that I was still honest."
• The Lumineers typically disguise melancholy themes in an upbeat tempo, such as the stomp-and-clap fan favorite "Ho Hey," which generates a positive vibe despite its downtrodden lyrics about loneliness and unrequited love. While the somber songs on III skip the pretense of positivity, fans still found a light in the darkness.
  
  "Every show you ever go to, someone's talking about getting their heart broken, most likely, and there are people who put their arms around each other," Schultz told NPR. "Coming together for a concert or hearing someone say something that you only thought you felt - I think that's why it's positive even though it's counterintuitive that heartbreak music would be when people cheer the loudest."