"Favourite" explores of the connections that define a life tinged with the bittersweet ache of change. The heartfelt lyrics have themes of love, duality, and a cyclical nature of emotions.
Frontman Grian Chatten describes it as: "a never-ending sound... two worlds spinning forever."
Chatten sings not just of romantic love, but the constellation of relationships that define a life: family, friends, the shared journey of a band.
"The song sounds about two years old and it's an old. I suppose all of the people in our lives in my life at least, make life meaningful and an interesting and fun," Chatten told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders. "I'm not very good at telling people to their face, so I think I need to write a song in order to express something."
"Favourite" is also a song of lost innocence. The chorus throws us back to simpler times, a childhood filled with scraped knees and worry-free days.
It's a cry far from bed radios
And days spent playing football indoors
Chatten contrasts those memories with the harsher realities of the present. He references a bygone era ("When they painted town with Thatcher"), highlighting the vast gulf between then and now.
"It's funny, because I was just thinking about a story of when I was a kid. When I was a very young kid I used to run around the backyard with my eyes closed because I was afraid that bees would mistake my eyes for flowers and try to land on them," Chatten told Saunders. "And I'll get some of my eyeballs. So I just kind of thought of that until the song came out."
"Favourite" is the closing track of Fontaines D.C.'s fourth album,
Romance. They released it as the record's second single on June 18, 2024. Jangling guitars and soaring harmonies create a clear-eyed exploration of love, a stark contrast to the dystopian soundscapes of the lead single, "
Starburster."
"I kind of think like a 'Starburster.' There is a dystopian sort of industrial, futuristic nightmare," said Chatten. "Then 'Favourite' is the sort of like uncovered fossil of the '50s radio station. I wanted to make songs that had the kind of contrast of joy but also kind of surrender on some sort of deathless a stuck comes with maybe the ends."
The accompanying video, self-directed by the band, blends past and present. It weaves footage from a recent trip to Madrid, a city with deep personal connections for the band (guitarist Carlos O'Connell's hometown and the launching pad for their first tour), with childhood videos of the band members.
"This video is a reminiscing of the past; of each other's childhoods we didn't know," reflected bassist Conor Deegan. "To see people we know on an intimate level as adults in the tender ages of childhood, we explore where we came from, and who on some level, still are."
Deegan went on to explain that the video honors "our friendships, and moving from that, the relationships we hold dear. Our mothers, fathers, siblings, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. Those who we still have, and those we have sadly lost."
"We haven't lost that connection to each other," he added. "And are not afraid to come of age again, holding on to romance in a sometimes trying world."
Fontaines D.C. wrote "Favourite" during a rehearsal, and it came together almost exactly as it is now. "We were kind of nervous about touching it again for the album because that first recording was so good," drummer Tom Coll shared with Apple Music. "That's the song that hung around in our camp for the longest. When we write songs on tour, often we end up getting bored of them over time but 'Favourite' really stuck."
Chatten wrote 12 verses for "Favourite." He asked his bandmates to edit it down, and they shortened it to just four.
"Favourite" is intentionally conflicted. Chatten described it to Later's Jools Holland as a song about how your "favourite" person can affect you negatively as well as positively; a tension he finds far more interesting than uncomplicated love songs.
