Songfacts®:

• "Stay (If You Wanna Dance)" is Myles Smith's call to ditch the grey routine - dead-end jobs, cold apartments, the nagging sense that life is something happening elsewhere - and start living for today.
  
  "It's about escaping the cycle that makes life feel smaller than it really is," said Smith. "At its heart, it's about connection, freedom, and choosing to live for now."
• Smith wrote "Stay (If You Wanna Dance)" in Sweden in August 2025 while on tour supporting Ed Sheeran's stadium-sized "+?=÷× Tour." He penned it with three heavy-hitters: Mikky Ekko, Oscar Görres, and Rami Yacoub.
  
  Ekko is best known for co-writing and singing on Rihanna's heart-stopping 2013 ballad "Stay," which makes this a tidy little callback: Rihanna's "Stay" begged you not to leave, while this one all but dares you to throw caution to the wind and start dancing. In between, Ekko co-penned many of Teddy Swims' hits, including "Lose Control," "The Door" and "Bad Dreams."
  
  Oscar Görres is part of Max Martin's fabled Wolf Cousins team. His other credits include Sam Smith's "Diamonds" and Ariana Grande's "Supernatural." He served as the primary producer here, also contributing programming, drums, bass, keyboards, mandolin, guitar, banjo and piano to the arrangement.
  
  Swedish-Palestinian songwriter Rami Yacoub helped launch Britney Spears into the stratosphere with "...Baby One More Time" and later helped shaped the sound of One Direction. He also worked on Ariana Grande's "Rain On Me."
  
  "I wrote this song with a crew I had never worked with before," said Smith. "Our very first time together in the middle of Sweden. We all came from different places and different walks of life, but the moment we sat down, it felt like family. Mikky, Oscar and Rami poured so much heart into this one and I am so grateful to have shared that time with them."
• "Stay (If You Wanna Dance)" has an energetic, dance-oriented production, showcasing an uptempo departure from some of Smith's more contemplative earlier work. Where his singles sometimes leaned into the wistful - the melancholy pull of "Solo," or the wonder of "Stargazing" - "Stay (If You Wanna Dance)" is brighter, bolder, and far more kinetic.
• "Stay (If You Wanna Dance)" was designed to invite comparisons to Rihanna's 2013 ballad "Stay." Myles Smith co-wrote the track with Mikky Ekko, who helped pen Rihanna's original.
  
  "It came from us talking about wanting to write another 'Stay,'" Smith told Jimmy Hill on The Capital Evening Show. While he admitted they probably wouldn't match the success of the original, he added with a grin, "We had a good crack at it."