Songfacts®:

• Chris Isaak wrote this song after splitting from a girlfriend. Isaak missed her desperately but felt he had to keep his heartbreak secret. Isaak expanded on the matter to Addicted to Noise: "If you were looking at my life at the time, it looked like everything was okay. That I was having a good time. But in actuality, I was missing her more than ever. I like the first lines of the song: 'I know somebody/ And they cry for you/ They lie awake at night.' Not only are you saying that this is happening, but it's kind of in a secret way. It's like a little kid's way of saying things. Most of us are as terrified of love as little kids are terrified of the world. Little kids come up to you and say, 'I know someone who loves you' or 'I know someone who likes you.' They say it like, I'm not going to really come out and say it. And for adults, it's probably the same way. They never really get beyond that fear."
• Isaak revealed to The Oak Ridger that he wrote the song while locked away in a closet: "I had just broken up with someone and hadn't been out of the house much. A friend of mine was having a party and as soon as I arrived I realized I didn't want to be there. The house had this big walk-in closet in the hallway, so I went in, shut the door, and sat down underneath the coats. There was a guitar leaning against the wall in the back. I started tuning it up and wrote 'Somebody's Crying.'"
• The official video was directed by Bill Pope and follows a young couple during summertime. Isaak told Lakeland Ledger he purposefully wanted the video to be happy, unlike the song itself: "I thought it would be more fun to do. More and more I'm trying to keep a little bit of fun in what I'm doing."
• The song appears on Forever Blue, an album Isaak wrote and recorded following a painful break up. The original record came complete with a letter hand-written by Isaak to his ex-girlfriend. In the letter, Isaak wrote: "Do you sleep with somebody else now? How's that? I tell myself not to think about that stuff but I do. I'm (messed) up." Isaak explained to LA Times why he included the letter: "This time, I thought, 'You know, I really don't care.' I want there to be as much as possible. If this (letter) will explain a little bit where I was coming from, good. If someone else think's it's goofy, well go ahead."