It's Amazing To Be Young

Album: Romance (2025)
Charted: 39
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was inspired by the birth of Fontaines D.C. guitarist Carlos O'Connell's baby, a momentous occasion that reportedly softened the band's collective cynicism for at least the duration of the songwriting process. Bassist Conor Deegan III explained:

    "'It's Amazing To Be Young' is a song that was written in the presence of a newborn child - Carlos' child. It sounded more like a lullaby or a music box then, but with the same lyric - 'it's amazing to be young.' The feeling of hope a child can give is profound and moving, especially for young men like us.

    That sense of wanting to create a world for them to grow up in happily. It's a feeling that fights against the cynicism that can often overtake us in the modern world. So we wanted to declare which side we were on – it really is amazing to be young. We are still free, and want to make that feeling spread. We want to protect it for the others around us, and maybe in doing that, can also help protect it for ourselves."
  • The song's music video, directed by Luna Carmoon, forms the final installment of a loose trilogy that began with "Here's The Thing" and "In The Modern World." This final chapter brings together two previously introduced characters - Martin (played by Ewan Mitchell) and Spider (Grace Collender) - in what Carmoon describes as an "unlikely but beautifully surreal love story."

    Rather than being meticulously planned, the trilogy came together organically. As she mused on the current state of romantic love in culture, Carmoon lamented how it is being pushed to the side, no longer what people want to see. She saw in these characters an opportunity to resist that trend, saying, "I love that these two people have fallen in love with themselves, and I wanted to see them fall in love with each other."
  • Fontaines D.C. released "It's Amazing To Be Young" as a standalone single on February 21, 2025. It was written by the band and produced by James Ford, who helmed their Romance album. The band's bassist, Conor Deegan III, revealed to NME that the song was penned around the same as Romance but was simply left off the record because they wanted to keep the album "concise."
  • Fontaines D.C. played "It's Amazing To Be Young" live for the first time on February 22, 2025 during their set at the Toyosu PIT, in Tokyo, Japan.

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