Songfacts®:

• This was Depeche Mode's first single without founding member and chief songwriter Vince Clarke, who'd left the band for Yazoo. Against all expectations it managed to beat all three Clarke-written singles in the UK charts.
• Vince Clarke wanted to leave the band with a good single, so he wrote the song "Only You." Depeche Mode turned it down and instead released "See You," which Martin Gore wrote when he was only 16. "Only You" ended up being a #2 hit for Yazoo, but "See You" proved that Depeche Mode could have a go without Clarke. Recalling this pivotal time, Gore told Mojo, "We didn't panic, we just booked some studio time. Then 'See You,' which I wrote when I was 16, was the first song we recorded and it was a huge hit; we felt invincible."
• This is a song of longing, with the singer trying to convince his lost love to give their relationship another try. "Times change, but I think that you'll find people are basically the same," he pleads.
• Julien Temple directed the video, which finds Dave Gahan (lead vocalist on this track) searching for a woman whose photograph keeps showing up in various photo booths he encounters.
• Though keyboardist Alan Wilder had joined the band by this time he was not included on the song's recording. However he can be briefly seen on the music video typing on a typewriter in the background.