Songfacts®:

• Villagers are an Irish band fronted by Conor J. O'Brien. Their debut album Becoming a Jackal was released in Ireland on 14 May 2010, topping the charts there. The following week it came out in the rest of Europe and the United Kingdom and then in North America a fortnight later.
• On the doo-wop-tinged climax to the album, Conor O'Brien, breaks into howling. The frontman told Mojo magazine that he penned the song immediately after his first band, The Immediate, disintegrated in 2006 leaving him, "in pieces, in the corner of the room. In an endless afternoon." But wanting to rein in the morose mood, he conceived the idea that, "a touch of theatre can really connect with people. And howling was such an incredible feeling! But it was really weird too. I recorded Pieces at 3am in a loft outhouse, and the very next morning, a pack of dogs appeared, and for the next few nights I was kinda terrified because they were all walking around the house, and I've never seen them again since."
• O'Brien told The Sun August 6, 2010. "Howling is an intensely primal thing. It is something, which is generally frowned upon in most areas of everyday life. I see it as somewhat of a coup that I've managed to put myself in the position whereby I do it almost every day in an intensely public space."