Songfacts®:

• London Grammar is an English Indie Rock trio comprising vocalist Hannah Reid, guitarist Daniel Rothman and multi-instrumentalist Dot Major. Hannah admitted to Digital Spy that she was troubled before the unveiling of this single. "I was really worried about that before it went online," she said. "For me, the songs I love the most are like 'Hey Now' and 'Darling Are You Gonna Leave Me'; the more unusual ones. So before 'Wasting' went up I was terrified. I was like, 'This is it, this is the end.' But people do like it, and I think that's as far as our 'pop' sound will go."
• Directing duo Bison built a rig housing featured 625 pinhole cameras in a 360 degree loop for the song's music video. By exposing an entire roll of 35mm film in a single instant they were able to capture the panoramic images. "So the idea becomes looking at one moment from many perspectives, as opposed to looking at many moments from one perspective, like most music videos," said the band. "We really wanted to capture that essence of someone falling or being trapped."
• Hannah Reid's lyrics were written after a breakup, and are about the pain of working hard at something or someone only to find it a waste of time. "I have a lot of friends now who are really lost," the vocalist told The Guardian. "We got to go to university and have a good education, but we're finding ourselves in a position where it's impossible to get jobs, and we're terrified. So many people I know don't know what to do with their lives."
• "Wasting My Young Years" was a major hit in Europe, reaching the #2 spot in France. "Whenever we go to France, it's all they talk about," Reid told The Independent in 2024. "They're always like, 'Is [your new song] going to be as good as "Wasting My Young Years"?' I'm never going to write that song again. You just have to make your peace with that."