Songfacts®:

• The title track of One Direction's third album is an ode to the quintet's life on tour. It was written by Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson from the band with their frequent collaborators, John Ryan, Julian Bunetta and Jamie Scott. The same trio also co-penned "Story of My Life."
• Liam told Ryan Seacrest during a pre-release Q&A that this track is the most significant part of Midnight Memories. "This was the first song we wrote on the new album and it set us on course of what writing the rest of this album was going to be. It set the tone," he explained.
• The song talks about over-crowded Addison Lees, which is a reference to a London-based minicab company. Addison Lee was co-founded by minicab driver John Griffin, who was convinced that his new business needed a name which started with an "A" so it would appear early in telephone directory listings. A colleague mentioned to him that people thought his address, Addison Gardens, sounded very posh and Griffin added 'Lee' to complete it.
• Julian Bumetta told MTV News the song personifies the five guys' lifestyle. "It's the title of the album and it just happens to fall in line with Up All Night, Take Me Home, it's all references to in the evening," he said.
  
  "And midnight memories are where most of the memories of this record were made," Bunetta continued. "[It] was between midnight and 5 in the morning. We have so many memories of just being in the studio or being after a show or being in the back of the bus or going to one of the guys' places and hanging and writing. Or, [it's also] just when you're young and that's when you kind of have all your experiences."
• When Midnight Memories entered the Billboard 200 at #1, One Direction became the first group in US chart history to debut their first three albums at the peak position. The 546,000 copies sold in its first week meant that the former X Factor act became only the third Pop group to sell more than 500,000 copies in a week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys were the two others to achieve the milestone.
  
  Midnight Memories also reached the summit in over 26 other countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, Philippines, Spain and the United Kingdom. It was 2013's biggest-selling album around the world, clocking up global sales of four million.
  
• The song bears a sonic resemblance to Def Leppard's 1987 hit single, "Pour Some Sugar On Me." However, the UK rock band's guitarist Vivian Campbell told Billboard magazine they wouldn't be pursuing legal action. "The chords are one-four-five," said Campbell. "Those are the blues. You don't get more basic than that. I think what's more reminiscent of the Leppard thing is the production, the sound, the vocals, the reverb and the way it's assembled. That is very flattering that all of a sudden these kids think it's a cool sound. I think a lot of people of their generation aren't going to connect their music to ours."
• Midnight Memories was the UK's biggest-selling album of 2013, despite only being released at the end of November.