Songfacts®:

• Hailing from the English city of Oxford (also home of Radiohead), the four members of Glass Animals have known each other since the age of fourteen. The quartet started making music together after leaving school and they came to the attention of Paul Epworth in 2013. The producer made them his first signing label to his Wolf Tone label.
• This dreamy love anthem was produced by Paul Epworth and released as Glass Animal's second single from their debut album Zaba. It became the first airplay American hit for the English band when it entered the Alternative Songs chart.
• Frontman Dave Bayley told The Quietus the story of the song: "'Gooey' started off as a beat I'd made for a hip hop artist," he said. "I was just going through some beats I had made for someone, choosing which to send off, and I got to this one and listened to it a couple times. At that point it was just the bass line, drums, percussion, and little glock riff. All of a sudden those chords popped into my head and I got the piano out and started tinkering and then the, 'Right, my little Pooh Bear' vocal line popped into my head, and then the rest. I ended up making this eight-minute groove track. Then I showed it to the guys and we took it to the studio where we shaved off a few minutes."
• Paul Epworth was the source of some unorthodox recording methods for the song's vocal take. Bayley explained. "I recorded the vocal while holding a pineapple called Sasha Fierce (the name of Beyoncé's sexpot alter ego). Paul also had this idea to record about eight tracks of me singing the final chorus in different accents and voices to get the sound of a tweaked choir. I think I imitated an old woman, a drunk crack addict, a terrible impression of James Brown, etc."
• Glass Animals made its American late-night TV debut on October 8, 2014 when they performed this song on NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers.
• The song soundtracked the 2015 iPhone 6S "Reveal" commercial, which features a variety of beautifully colored Beta fish.