Songfacts®:

• "The Seldom Seen Kid" is the late Mancunian musician Bryan Glancy, a close friend of Elbow frontman Guy Garvey. Garvey's father gave Glancy his ironic nickname in recognition of his popularity within the Manchester music community. He was friends with everyone stretching from homeless people on the streets to millionaire rock stars, and when Glancy died suddenly in 2006, the whole of Manchester mourned him.
• Elbow named their 2008 album, which went on to win the Mercury Music Prize, The Seldom Seen Kid. Garvey wrote that record's tracks "Friend of Ours," "Build a Rocket Boys," and "The Night Will Always Win" about his fallen friend.
• Elbow recorded the song for their ninth studio album, Flying Dream 1. The band wrote the record remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, with each band member composing music at their homes in Manchester (keyboardist and producer Craig Potter, guitarist Mark Potter, and bassist Pete Turner) and London (Guy Garvey). "While we were recording, the realities of lockdown meant that I often only got to hear the music the lads had been making in their homes in Manchester late at night when the house was still," Garvey said.
• Once he received the music, Garvey freestyled lyrics as thoughts entered his head. When Craig Potter sent the Elbow singer the instrumentation for "The Seldom Seen Kid," he had his microphone open at his desk. Looking out the window at the rain, he stayed silent for about an hour, then listened to his bandmates' music. "The first thing I heard was what you hear, the drums leading into a beautiful, daring, woodwind arrangement. I was expecting a piano, not a clarinet, but Craig's creation perfectly encapsulated my mood at that point and the lyrics came out in the order you hear them," Garvey said.
  
  The roses are heavy
  With rain and for ages
  Veil after veil
  And the pictures are whispering
  
  After Garvey listened to what Potter had sent me on loop, he started singing what he saw. "The rain filling up my roses, old pictures around the room, including photos of Bryan Glancy," he told The Sun.
• Then he'd steal you for dancing
  And you'd lend him your arms
  And I'd stooge for your laughing
  And you'd twirl in the chaos of charm
  
  Garvey imagined Glancy meeting his wife Rachael and how much they'd love each other. "All the band know the two people I'm writing about really well," said the frontman. "And so when it gets to that lyric and 'the twirling of chaos and calm', that's when they brought in their music - the piano and the bass. That piece of music is their love for the two people in the song."
• Elbow recorded Flying Dream 1 at the Theatre Royal in Brighton when it was closed during lockdown. This song's video shows the band laying down the track.