The first single from Halcyon took a lot of work before Goulding was satisfied it was ready. "I've been with this song a long time," the singer told Fearne Cotton on BBC Radio 1 following the track's debut play, "and I've had to listen to it a lot to get it just how I wanted it," The song was made available to download in the UK on September 30, 2012.
Speaking with Carson Daily on his AMP 97.1FM radio show on August 9, 2012, Goulding shared most of her songs are the result of single lines she constructs while going about her daily routine. "It's really hard to explain. I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things," she said. "I write random things down… Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time."
The Halcyon album title refers to a mythical bird in ancient times, which was said to remain tranquil during hatching and was able to calm the wind and seas. Said Goulding to Carson Daily: "It's like a bird that basically during the winter, it would lay its eggs by the sea and bring calm to the stormy waters, and a lot of my songs on this record are about the ocean and water."
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