The Wanderlust

The song features a vocal contribution from Lou Reed. Metric vocalist Emily Haines first met the former Velvet Underground frontman at a Neil Young tribute concert during Vancouver's Winter Olympics. It was Barenaked Ladies' Kevin Hearn who introduced Haines to Reed. "I assumed he would just say, 'Oh, whatever, nice to meet you' and instead he said, 'ah, Emily Haines, who would you rather be? The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?'" the Canadian singer recalled to Spinner, adding that she was shocked that the rock icon had just referenced Metric's "Gimme Sympathy" song. "I was, 'Aw. No fu---ng way! He knows my name. Not only does he know my band - which I totally didn't expect - it was a total writer shout-out, which you know is such an important part to me." The pair hit off instantly and Reed invited Haines to perform with him at 'Vivid Live,' an event he and wife Laurie Anderson were curating at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Reed and Haines collaborated again in the summer of 2011 for a tribute to songwriter and children's author Shel Silverstein in Central Park. At the time, Metric were working on this song and were struggling with the line "Wanderlust will carry us on..." "When I sang it, or the guys sang it, it was like, 'what is this... Glee?'" recalled Haines. "This is not working, but we needed this feeling expressed of just keep on keeping on. I called Lou and he said yes."

Reed requested that their mics were set up facing each other and the pair sang the whole song together. However, the final version only uses Reed on the chorus. "We thought it needed to be a moment, not stand out from the record," said Haines to Spinner. "At some point maybe we'll release that version."