Songfacts®:

• Vocalist and lyricist Joe Newman tells a semi-fictional story on this song about being attacked on The Common, a park in Southampton near where he grew up. The Common is also referenced on another An Awesome Wave track, "Fitzpleasure."
• The An Awesome Wave album title comes from this song's lyric, "A wave on awesome wave." Newman explained to NME: "It comes from the book American Psycho. The lead character Patrick Bateman lies to all his colleagues that he's going to get them into this really posh restaurant. He's freaking out because he thinks they're going to get turned away, but the say, 'Of course, sir'. That relief washes over him 'like an awesome wave.'"
• The closing line, "flood of blood to the heart" is a reference to the Coldplay album, A Rush of Blood to The Head.
• The song features additional vocals from St. Ronan's School Choir, who also appear on the An Awesome Wave track, "Taro."
• Alt-J recorded a sequel titled "Bloodflood Pt.II" for their This Is All Yours album.
• The artwork for An Awesome Wave is a European Space Agency satellite image of the Ganges River Delta in Bangladesh and India. Alt-J found it when they searched for images related to the word "delta," the triangle symbol for the band.