Frontman Jonathan Pierce told NME that this song is "kind of" about the band's guitarist Adam Kessler leaving The Drums two days before they were due to leave for their first American tour. He explained: "It's sort of a goodbye song - but it's not sentimental. It's not sad. It's more of an angry sort of thing. We wrote it fresh off the heels of Adam telling us he was leaving. I guess it's more about feeling betrayed than feeling sad."
The song was conceived on the night of Kessler's departure. Pierce told UK radio station XFM that Kessler held some influence over Portamento: "The first song we wrote for the new album was definitely a reaction to Adam leaving. Sort of a bit of an angry song with a few emotions in there that we were feeling. We weren't really sure how we were feeling so the song might come across as slightly confused."
The "Portamento" album title refers to a vocal slide between two pitches. Guitarist Jacob Graham told Digital Spy: "The title actually means moving gradually from one point to another and the space between those two points. I think that sums up the album - it ends up in a completely different place than our debut but there are elements of the first in there."
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