Songfacts®:

• The first single from Everything Everything's Get To Heaven album is a plea for a return to better times. Frontman Jonathan Higgs said, "Distant Past is about primal human nature, and no matter how far we progress in our civilisations, we can never escape it."
• Jonathan Higgs also directed the song's music video, which is centred around a fight scene between two cavemen. The clip was filmed in Cheddar Gorge, Cheshire and stars British wrestler Ed Gamester. There are also shots of the four Everything Everything members performing with as little movement as possible. Higgs explained to Promo News this was because, "I wanted to create a strong contrast between the 'past' and 'future' scenes, to emphasize the primal nature of the past and the overly civilized future."
• Jonathan Higgs came up the song's huge synth-rave chorus in his parents' shed. "We did struggle with it," bassist Jeremy Pritchard told NME. "Because we thought it would sound cheap and nasty, like a sh---y David Guetta thing, but I think it struck the balance."