Songfacts®:

• Florence Welch said of the inspiration for this song: "I was thinking about my own self destructive side, and how you can make something only to tear it down, enjoy/destroy, create/devastate etc. When you're in that whirlwind, you often end up breaking the thing you love the most."
• Welch penned the song with Kid Harpoon during a month-long creative furlough in Los Angeles that also yielded How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful's lead single "What Kind Of Man." Welch previously collaborated with the London-based songwriter/producer on her gospelly hit tune "Shake It Out."
• When Florence + the Machine played Coachella in April 2015, Florence Welch explained this song is about "some time off I had in London where I had some drunken parties and trashed my house and said a drunken 'I love you' too soon."
  
  "Even though all that disastrous stuff happened, I got this song out of it," she added. "It all works out, and even if it doesn't, write a song about it."
• The song's music video was directed by Vincent Haycock (Madonna, OneRepublic) and was filmed inside Florence Welch's home. The clip, which finds the songstress struggling with a tumultuous relationship with both a love interest and herself, was choreographed by Ryan Heffington, who also did Sia's "Chandelier" and Lykke Li's "Gunshot" visuals.
• Florence + the Machine performed this song on the May 9, 2015 episode of Saturday Night Live. Florence Welch had a broken foot, so she sat on a stool while she sang.
• Florence Welch said to the New York Times regarding the self-destructive side of her personality: "I'm fun up to a point, and then it gets destructive. That's how I wrote 'Ship to Wreck.' It was: 'What have I done? Oh my God! Why do I keep doing this?' It's that feeling that you love something so much, and it's always the first thing to break."