Songfacts®:

• Coldplay recorded this breakup ballad for their ninth studio album, Music of the Spheres. Selena Gomez joins Chris Martin to sing about the hurt and sorrow that happens when a loving relationship has run its course.
  
  When you love somebody
  Then it hurts like so
  To let somebody go
  
  The two singers recognize that although they still love each other, it's best to part ways. It's a painful decision to make that has left both of them heartbroken.
• Music Of The Spheres is a space-themed record. Though "Let Somebody Go" is a standard breakup song, Coldplay throw in a couple of astronomical metaphors that link with the album's interstellar theme.
  
  I loved you to the moon and back again
  You gave everything this golden glow
  Now turn off all the stars, 'cause this I know
• Early on, the band realized they needed a female counterpart to the vocal. When they asked Gomez to sing on "Let Somebody Go," she loved the song and agreed to the duet.
  
  Martin told Apple Music that early in Coldplay's career, they didn't do collaborations. "When we were younger, we kind of locked ourselves in a room and felt we had to prove everything ourselves," he said.
  
  Now, it's become interesting for the band to work with artists from different genres and other parts of the world. "It just adds color and character to the music," Martin commented.
• Coldplay wrote the song with:
  
  Chris Martin's daughter, Apple Martin. She has also made several vocal contributions to Coldplay tracks, including on "O," "Hymn For The Weekend," and "Orphans."
  
  British Barbadian singer-songwriter Livvi Franc. This is her first credit on a Coldplay song, but she previously co-wrote Selena Gomez's Latin dance-pop track "Save The Day."
  
  American producer Metro Boomin. Best known for his recordings with Atlanta hip-hop artists such as Future and 21 Savage, he sprinkles a dash of trap music onto this song.
  
  Music of the Spheres producers Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Bill Rahko.
• That's Coldplay drummer Will Champion on backing vocals. Max Martin has a credit for additional vocals.
• Coldplay and Selena Gomez performed the song live for the first time during the October 18, 2021 episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden.
• Dave Meyers directed the black-and-white video, which shows Chris Martin and Selena Gomez living in a city that gets turned both upside down and inside out before slowly disintegrating. Shot in October 2021, it was co-conceived and choreographed by the French dancer Yoann Bourgeois.
  
  "He's really convinced that there can be a very strong follow between the feeling of suspension and the feeling of love," assistant choreographer Marie Bourgeois said of Yoann Bourgeois in a behind the scenes video, as we see Martin and Gomez high above the ground. "It's super beautiful to see Chris and Selena discovering this. We can really feel that it's a new sensation for them, and to guide them through it and to see what opens up thanks to that is something really amazing."
  
  Meyers also filmed the clips for Coldplay's previous singles, "Higher Power" and "My Universe."