Songfacts®:

• "Paradise Calling" is the opening track of Birdy's fifth studio album, Portraits. The lively synthpop number is the most uptempo song on the album.
  
  "I wrote 'Paradise Calling' because I wanted to write something that was really joyous and was kind of instant from the first moment and I think that energy is not something that I really experimented before," Birdy said. "So, we started with the since riff which is how the song starts."
• Birdy co-wrote and co-produced the song with Anya Jones and King Ed.
  
  Former Head of A&R at Syco Music, Anya Jones inked a songwriting deal with Spirit Music Group in 2020. She has written songs for artists like Tom Grennan, Bebe Rexha and Kylie Minogue.
  
  King Ed, real name Edward James Carlile, is a longtime collaborator of South African singer Baby Queen.
• Birdy is addressing a love interest who doesn't feel the same way. "It is a song about chasing a dream but it always being just out of reach or realizing it was never real in the first place," she told The Sun.
• "Paradise Calling" marks Birdy's debut into the world of pulsating dance beats, which is reflected in the video. "This the first time we've attempted to do some kind of dance," Birdy told BBC Radio 2's Jo Whiley regarding the clip. "But yeah, it's fun. It's literally just me, dancing. I had an amazing choreographer who was helping me with it."