The lead single from singer-songwriter Bruno Mars' sophomore album, Unorthodox Jukebox, features production by Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, Emile Haynie and the songwriting/production team the Smeezingtons (Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine). The song finds Mars singing of a relationship that is so good the narrator feels like he was "locked out of heaven" before he met his lover. It debuted digitally and on radio on October 1, 2012 and became available for purchase the following day.

During his Google+ Hangout on the day of the song's release, Mars was asked by a fan to name his favorite lyrics from the track. Mars picked the phrase "But swimming in your water is something spiritual," and later said that the single's exploration of feeling and being in love fits into the "sensual, sensual and sensual" theme of the album.

Though critics have been quick to point out the song's similarities to some of the hits by the Police, Mars told MTV News he did not set out to write anything inspired by the Sting-fronted band. Instead, it came to him out of the blue, one night during his studio sessions prior to recording the Unorthodox Jukebox album. "I don't think it initially tried to sound like anybody else, but I picked up the guitar and just started playing [the song's opening chords]," Mars explained. "That's how it normally works; I'll pick up a guitar and I'll start humming a melody, and I started singing that, and I was up there in Sting-ville, in that register, so that's what you get... I tend to listen to a lot of guys with higher registers - Sting being one of them, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder - because I've got a high voice."