Songfacts®:

• This is the title track of Karmin's debut full-length album. Pulses details the turbulent journey Berklee College of Music graduates Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan have been on since being pulled from their basement apartment in Boston and set on the path to music stardom. "We were kind of in a honeymoon phase for a while, like, 'Holy s--t, that actually happened?'" Heidemann said of the events leading up to the release of the LP. "Then real-life hit. Everything was great until things didn't go exactly the way some people said they would. We were definitely brought back down to reality."
  
  "And that inspired several songs on the album," she continued, "like 'Neon Love,' 'Drifter,' 'Tidal Wave,' 'Puppet,' 'What's In It For Me,' and the title track, 'Pulses.' Because after the honeymoon ended, the real work began. It's been a lot of ups and downs, which we represent with the jagged up-and-down line symbol of a pulse on the album cover."
• This song started with a lyrical idea Amy came up with: "I want to raise pulses." She and Nick then built the rest of the song around that line. "'Pulses' is very aggressive," Amy said. "The whole song is about resuscitating, cardiac arrest and that kind of stuff."
• This song is a bit of a role reversal, with Nick Noonan singing the hook while Amy Heidemann takes the verses.
• The music video was directed by Ian Smith and opens with 1950s-style newsreel footage exploring "the pulses of sound." This section is narrated by George Takei, who played Sulu on Star Trek.