Songfacts®:

• On "A Couple Minutes," Olivia Dean details a fleeting, two-minute conversation with an ex after a long time apart. She focuses on the bittersweet emotions of briefly encountering her former partner and acknowledges that despite the relationship ending, the love between them never was wasted.
• Dean co-wrote the smoky, soulful song with Maverick Sabre, James A. Hawkins, Louis E. Ragland, and her producer Zach Nahome. Sabre also provides backing vocals.
• The string arrangement was crafted by cellist Rosie Danvers, who has also worked with Dean's "Rein Me In" duet partner, Sam Fender.
• "A Couple Minutes" is the 11th track on The Art of Loving, an album described as a "tender, intentional deep dive" into the many shades of love: romantic, platonic, self, and everything that fits awkwardly in between. The song captures the record's central theme: finding grace in love's impermanence and beauty in the small, unremarkable moments that make up real life.
• Dean took inspiration from the Sex And The City character Carrie Bradshaw for the album. "I'd never seen Sex And The City before, and started watching it from the beginning," she told The Sun on Sunday newspaper's Bizarre column. "I have been living my Carrie moment - her influence will be there."