Songfacts®:

• City and Colour is the recording alias of Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green. This was released on April 1, 2013 as the lead single from The Hurry And The Harm on City and Colour's Soundcloud page.
• Green originally wrote this for New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra. It was the first time that Green had been approached to pen something for another artist. "My first thought when I was asked was, 'I can't do this.' And then an hour later I wrote something," he told The Huffington Post. After not hearing back from Kimbra's people, he decided to record the song as his own.
• Green's lyrics about being "gracefully cursed" were penned with Kimbra in mind and were something he had little connection to emotionally. "'Thirst' proved to me, which is something that I've always struggled with, that I could write a song, a good song that I like, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about something horrible that happened to me," he told The Huffington Post. "For the longest time, I didn't think I could write songs unless it was cathartic."