Songfacts®:

• Keane's main songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley penned this on the same day as "Silenced By The Night," "Black Rain" and "Run With Me" (which can be found on the Deluxe Edition of Strangeland). He also wrote three Mt. Desolation songs, "Dividing Line," "Your Kind Of Life," and "Wherever You Were Going," during what must have been a particularly satisfying 24 hours.
• According to Rice-Oxley, singer Tom Chaplin was especially enthusiastic about this track. He said: "That's often the way it works - you have a lot of songs that everyone agrees on, but then each band member will have a song that they really champion because they hear something in it that everyone else hasn't quite picked up on yet. With Richard (Hughes, drums) it was The Starting Line."
• Rice-Oxley discussed the song's meaning: "I think the emotional content of this one is quite representative of the whole album - the story is basically 'I've realized that I have no idea what's going on in life, so I'm not going to judge anyone else!' I feel it has an atmosphere of sympathy and grace."
• The song's middle 8 is one of Rice-Oxley's favourite parts of Strangeland. He said: "Under the word 'time' at the end of the middle 8 you may be able to make out the four of us all singing 'Aaaaah' very operatically. Like a choir of angels falling down an elevator shaft."