Songfacts®:

• This song deals with drug addiction, specifically heroin. The lyrics, "Someone to whom I could relate, your needle and your damage done remains a sordid twist of fate" are a reference to the Neil Young song "The Needle And The Damage Done." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Laura - Bham, United Kingdom
• Molko explained the song's meaning to Rock Mag in 2006, saying: "The theme of 'Song To Say Goodbye' is keeping only the best aspects of your life. It's the first track I wrote in India. I went there for a lot of reasons, one of them being to try and change my lifestyle. I wanted to make me understand that I should not become a rock'n'roll cliché and that the world doesn't need another dead rock star. I've written it as a letter to myself."
• The eight-minute music video, directed by Philippe Andre, tells the story of a 9-year-old boy (Field Kate) who takes care of his mentally challenged father (Michael Joseph Carr). The clip opens with the boy driving down the Los Angeles Freeway, barely able to see above the steering wheel, as his father stares out the window in the back seat. Andre also directed videos for All Saints' covers of "Lady Marmalade" and "Under the Bridge."
• This is the second single from Placebo's fifth studio album, Meds. After exploring the electronic realm with producer Jim Abbiss on their previous album, Sleeping With Ghosts, the band intended to follow suit with Meds until their new producer, Dimitri Tikovoi, encouraged them to return to their rock roots.
  
  "It was our producer's agenda really, which we didn't really know about until we got into the studio," Molko told Zero in 2006. "But I'm quite glad we went through this more elemental process of making a record because we'd become very comfortable with a studio-based way of making music. We were in a place that was very much about samples and computers and vintage synthesizers. This recording session really became about playing again. We were in an old-school studio so there were no real tricks to hide behind. It all became about the musicians' performance and interaction with each other. We rediscovered an urgency, and the soul of the band, which is a tight rock band."
• This was used in the 2016 movie Alleycats, starring Eleanor Tomlinson.