Songfacts®:

• Ellie Goulding penned this with "Love Me Like You Do" and "On My Mind" collaborator Savan Kotecha. She wrote in a Genius annotation: "Savan, who I wrote this with, came up with the idea - 'Stop talking in codes.' About just not having that "communication." I was like, 'I love that idea,' and we wrote around that lack of communication, not really knowing what another person is thinking, which is very common."
• Goulding told The Sun: "On Codes I talk about doubting myself and over-analysing someone."
• Ellie Goulding's previous album, Halcyon, describes a two-and-a-half year tumultuous period, where she was over-thinking about her life and relationships and making herself miserable. Delirium is more of an upbeat affair where the English chanteuse sings about her feelings. She told Spin: "I didn't overthink this album as much as I did with my last album. I really think about how Halcyon was a lot about turmoil. Everything was out in the open and I had to sing those songs over and over, realizing I didn't want to sing them anymore. They just bum me out. They make me feel so sad."
  
  "I feel like my fans are going to have a little laugh about some of these lyrics because they're so obviously me. When I say things like (in "Codes"), 'Everything you do. I overanalyze,' everyone's gonna go like, 'Oh, we know you do that because you delve into that so much.'"
  
  "I definitely held myself back a little bit because I wanted to make something a bit more spirited and happy. I could have easily - as you know with my last two records - gone in and in and in. So I know how to write something very sad and heartfelt, but I just didn't want that. I wanted to be honest, but I didn't want to be... I just wanted to give just more of a positive vibe."