Songfacts®:

• Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten wrote the sweeping "In The Modern World" during a sojourn to Los Angeles. The sprawling metropolis, with its glittering skyscrapers and endless traffic, provided the perfect backdrop for Chatten's tale of a three-way relationship trying to stay afloat in a world that's rapidly going off the rails.
• The track opens with a resolute "I feel alive," and then, in a sort of musical tug-of-war, oscillates between calling the city "the city that you like" and "the city you despise."
  
  "I find it interesting," he reflected to Billboard of the City of Angels, which, in his book, is the closest thing to a full-blown endorsement of a place. He elaborated, "LA intrigues me and stimulates me creatively. Which LA can do, at least in short bursts."
• The grandiose ballad channels Lana Del Rey's signature brand of disillusionment. "I think I wrote that maybe with something like the ghost of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, or maybe Lana Del Rey's voice was ringing around in my head as well," Chatten mused to Billboard. "I don't know, but maybe it's a song to Lana Del Rey?"
• "In The Modern World" also draws inspiration from the end-of-the-world film genre, particularly the apocalyptic vibes of the 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk classic Akira.
  
  "I really wanted to write a song that felt like the romance that blossoms in that film," Chatten explained to Billboard. "That dystopian, everything crashing around you, and drifting further and further away apparently from a sense of humanity. But still therein blossoms a relationship, a romance. A romance that is necessary to cling onto something, and not give up hope in a world like that. I really related to that. Especially these days."
• Bassist Conor Deegan shares vocals with Chatten on the track. He croons:
  
  Come away with me and Sal
  I promise you'll be in it
  
  Fontaines D.C.'s music often draws inspiration from various literary and artistic movements, including the Beat Generation. Sal Paradise is the protagonist of Jack Kerouac's seminal beat novel On the Road.
  
  "That song, I get visions of On the Road, Jack Kerouac, driving through the desert in America," Deegan mused to The Irish Times. "The beat-up 1950s car, right? And they stop into the motel for some warm cans of beer. The AC isn't working. The fan is spinning half-speed. All that s--t."
• The music video, directed by Luna Carmoon - who also helmed the "Here's The Thing" visual - plunges into the dramatic. It stars Ewan Mitchell, known for his roles in House Of The Dragon and Saltburn, and shows him diving headfirst into the intense, fervent world of a Car Jitsu bout.
• Fontaines D.C. played "In the Modern World" live for the first time during their show at Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, Slovenia on August 12, 2024.
• Grian Chatten reflected to Mojo magazine how creating the Romance album underscored the band's organic and evolving approach to songwriting. He explained they eschewed rigid timelines for the record, favoring a process where songs develop naturally, allowing them "to breathe." This fluidity lets tunes evolve without being confined to the instruments immediately at hand, adding depth to their artistry. Chatten highlighted how touring fosters this growth, with songs shared and refined "like folk songs."
  
  The turning point for Romance, he noted, was writing "In the Modern World," which set the album's direction. He described it as the moment when the record's "clear spiritual form" emerged, defining "the color of the year" and capturing the essence of the city they were sonically painting.