Songfacts®:

• The lone 25 track with strings, Adele wrote this with Samuel Dixon. The Australian musician and songwriter played bass in Adele's live band throughout the promotion and touring for 21.
  
  Dixon has also frequently collaborated with fellow-Australian Sia Furler including her song "Clap Your Hands," which was nominated for Best Single at the 2010 ARIA Music Awards. Other compositions by the Australian pair include "Bound to You," sung by Christina Aguilera in the 2010 movie, Burlesque.
• Most of Adele's songs on 21 were kiss-offs to a former lover as she sung off the emotional turmoil from their breakup. This emotional ballad, however, finds Adele going from dumpee to dumper as she realizes that the love is spent and it's time to finish the relationship.
  
  I'm trying to be brave, stop asking me to stay
  I can't love you in the dark
  It feels like we're oceans apart
  There's so much space between us, it feels like we're already defeated
  
  Is this the guy whom Adele walked out on after she'd 'found a boy' on 21?
• Adele nods to English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe's 1979 hit when she sings here to her dumped lover that she is "being cruel to be kind."