Songfacts®:

• Translator was a four-piece band that formed in Los Angeles but settled in San Francisco, where they were part of that early '80s New Wave scene. "Gravity" is part of their third (self-titled) album, and is one of their more popular songs.
  
  Robert Darlington, who sings lead on the track in tandem with their other vocalist, Steve Barton, told the story behind the song to Songfacts: "I wrote 'Gravity' after the line 'I'm a dream and you're fading away' popped into my head while I was playing the chords. I write chords and melodies first, and then the lyrics. I realized I had a good chorus, and I wrote the song in about 10 minutes. I took it to Steve's apartment the next day, and we recorded it. The song really came together when the band started playing it, and we did a great recording of it with Ed Stasium for our self-titled third LP."
  
  Barton added: "Robert and I used to get together for writing sessions at my flat on Dorland Street in San Francisco back in 1982/1983. We had a friendly competition. He would come over with two new songs which we would record on my TEAC 3340 reel-to-reel 4-track machine. It would spark me to write something, which we would record the next day. Or I'd have some songs and he'd follow up with songs of his own. It was a really creative time. Several of those numbers wound up on Translator.
  
  When we eventually worked out 'Gravity' with the band, I came up with the signature guitar line that opens and closes the recording. The solo in the middle ends with me playing my wah-wah pedal to evoke a feeling of floating - to go along with the idea of gravity. We sang the song in two-part harmony all the way through. That was an idea we came up with together while making the original demo at my flat."
• Translator's most popular song is their first single, "Everywhere That I'm Not." "Gravity" didn't move the needle very far in America but did make some waves overseas.
  
  "'Gravity' was a big hit in the Philippines," Robert Darlington explains. "There are Filipino bands covering it on YouTube."
• This is one of the songs Translator played at their farewell concert at the music and art space The Farm in San Francisco when they called it quits in 1986. A recording of that show was issued in 2025, titled Beyond Today: Live At The Farm San Francisco 1986.