Songfacts®:

• "Tissues" is a song about the smorgasbord of emotions you feel when you're about to fall in love. There's the euphoria and butterflies in your stomach but also the fear about telling your object of desire about your feelings. "It's that shortness of breath and uncertainty where you're deciding whether to really make yourself vulnerable with someone," Yungblud told Apple Music, "and you're not sure if you might be about to get hurt or not."
• Yungblud co-wrote and co-produced "Tissues" with Chris Greatti, Jake Torrey, Matt Schwartz, and Paul Meany. We know the singer for his cathartic pop-punk songs, but this is more dancey and joyous. "As I enter a new vector of Yungblud, I wanted to dance. I remember when we were making it I was like 'I just want to dance!'" he told Apple Music's Zane Lowe.
• Before he adopted the Yungblud moniker, 15-year-old Dominic Harrison was heavily inspired by the British band The Cure, especially their eyeliner-wearing frontman Robert Smith. "I put on eyeliner because of Robert Smith. They represented and personified my happy and my sadness all at the same time," he said.
  
  When Yungblud and the other "Tissues" writers hit a lull, for inspiration they blasted some music, including The Cure's "Close To Me." "I remember we were writing in the studio and the session wasn't going well it was like midnight," Yungblud said. "I was thinking about packing it in and going home but then we opened a crate of Bud Light, started putting songs on that we loved."
  
  When "Close To Me" came on, Yungblud had the idea to sample it. His four co-writers warned him he might not get the rights, so the singer set out to convince Robert Smith to allow it. Yungblud and Robert Smith had met backstage at the 2019 NME Awards after Yungblud's mother, who was his date for the evening, started chatting with The Cure frontman. "I'm like 'alright mum, hello Robert, honored to meet ya,'" he recalled, "and he was like, 'I love what you're doing.'"
  
  With that positive encounter in mind, Yungblud decided to personally e-mail Smith to get approval to use the band's 1985 hit. "I was like, 'Hello Robert Smith of the Cure... 'Close To Me' - probably the most iconic British beat of all time. May I use it in the song?'"
  
  Smith responded within a couple of days. He replied in all caps, saying "HELLO DOM, YOU CAN USE IT ALL GOOD HERE, LOVE ROBERT." An excited Yungblud called the other songwriters up and told them, "I've sampled 'Close To Me.' They've let me use it."
• Yungblud first performed the buoyant song at Glastonbury Festival in June 2022.