Hozier wrote this song for the 2016 film The Legend Of Tarzan, a starring Alexander Skarsgard. "I was excited about the opportunity and the challenge of writing for this film project," said the singer. "After viewing an early edit, I was struck by the theme of endurance, and endurance of love through such a hostile environment. I wanted the song to be an intimate reassurance as spoken from one lover to another - one that might be issued in hardship or doubt."
The song deals with Tarzan's relationship with his wife, Jane, and also with nature. In the film, Tarzan is living in London when he is convinced to return to the jungle on a diplomatic mission that is actually part of an evil scheme (cooked up by the always dastardly Christoph Waltz, playing a nefarious Belgian authority). Nature, of course, plays a starring role and drives the story. Speaking with NPR, Hozier said, "You can stare long and hard at the lines we try to draw from nature, and we try to put order upon it, and you oftentimes come back with very, very little. The characters in the film turn their backs on the lines that we draw for an ordered society. Tarzan is born in nature and grows up in the jungle. He really has no place in ordered society and rejects it eventually."
Hozier had just three weeks to write and record the song. He saw a nearly completed edit of the film, and drew from the story, taking themes from the film and putting them into universal context in the lyrics, so the song could stand alone even without the film as reference - there are no references to specific characters or scenes.
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