Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Kele Okereke says he was inspired to write the song after hearing Busta Rhymes' song "Touch It." He said in an interview on the Album Chart Show, "I was watching the video to 'Touch It' whilst recording the album and it starts with these majorettes doing a stamp pattern and it goes into the song and I thought it was a really great idea and I was toying with that whilst recording the record, the sort of stamp formation pattern and we wrote the song around it."
• Another inspiration for this song was "St Luke's Passion" by Penderecki, which Okereke had listened to religiously for much of 2006. He said, "I was rethinking my voice as a separate instrument. I was stacking it and distorting it."
• Okereke explained on his record label's website that the lyrics for this song came easier than the others on the album: "It's weird, all these lyrics, save this one, I agonized over for month and months and months. Whereas this one started off with a different feel, perspective. Garrett [producer Jackknife Lee] really encouraged me to try and do something that wasn't quite so meticulous. One of the best lyrics in pop history is "Milkshake" by Kelis - 'my milk shake brings all the boys to the yard, I'd teach you but I'd have to charge.' It's such a sinister image. It doesn't mean anything, or it means the whole world. Is she a prostitute? Is she working in a milk bar? It has such a dark undercurrent. So with this song I was trying to cut my mind off from trying to rationalize everything. The first words just came to me. I wanted it to be something that would move people on to the dancefloor but in a real throwaway way. I think there's great validity in telling people that you don't have to try and over intellectualize everything. With 'The Prayer,' I was trying not to think.So, that's what came through: this idea of success. There's something really bold there. Something really... not us! We're seen as a polite and serious band. But I wanted to do something that wasn't about that at all."