Songfacts®:

• Elbow's sixth album was originally titled Carry Her, Carry Me, before being changed to The Take Off and Landing of Everything. "It always happens, this," Guy Garvey told Q Magazine. "The title's now from a song there - this huge, cacophonous thing, born of our love for space rock, prog, Primal Scream and Spiritualized."
  
  He continued: "It's to do with the fact that there have been lots of life events. There are five members of the band, people have split up, got together, had children, it never stops this stuff. Especially round the 40 mark; there's lots of re-evaluations in life, and yet I wanted to remain celebratory about that."
  
  "Everybody's feeling relief with remorse, next to joy, next to loss.," Garvey added. "But I think think laughing very hard and worrying very little is a good way to keep young."
• Elbow achieved their first-ever UK #1 album when The Take Off and Landing of Everything debuted at the peak position. It took the band 24 years to achieve their first chart topper, having first played together as teenagers at college in 1990.
• Much of The Take Off and Landing of Everything was inspired by Guy Garvey's breakup with his long-term partner Emma Jane Unsworth. The title song is about beginnings and endings. The Elbow frontman explained to Q magazine: "There is such a relief when some things run its course and you put it to bed. Not, 'Thank God I'm not doing that any more' but, 'Thank God I haven't done too much damage to someone I care about deeply.'"
  
  "I wanted the song to be a celebration, not just of the throes of great relationships, but of the timely end of things," he continued. "The landings are as important as the take-offs."