Songfacts®:

• The phrase "live in the moment" is a mindfulness mantra; in this song, Portugal. The Man lead singer John Gourley, who wrote the lyric, uses it to reflect on mortality:
  
  When you're gone
  Goodbye, so long, farewell
• This was the follow-up to the band's breakthrough hit "Feel It Still." Gourley told Songwriter Universe: "'Live in the moment' is such a common, well-known phrase - everybody's heard that before. I love the idea of trying to give something like that new life. It looks easy until you hear it in your context, and you see the bigger picture."
• The band wrote this song with John Hill, who produced the track, and Ammar Malik, who did additional production work on the album.
• Gourley and his bandmate Zach Carothers grew up in Alaska, which explains the line, "When I was young, always go below the midnight sun." In the summer, the sun could stay up all night there.
• This song came together in a completely different way to its predecessor. "Unlike 'Feel It Still' - which took roughly an hour for some reason, it's the fastest song we ever done - 'Live in the Moment' was one of those things where we were, like, banging our head against the wall," Zach Carothers told reporters. "I think there's like 23 different version of 'Live in the Moment,' we walked all over the place."
• The song topped Billboard's Alternative Songs listing giving co-writer Ammar Malik a rare chart feat on the Billboard charts: #1 songs at the pop, alternative and country formats. Malik topped Pop Songs with Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger," "Payphone" and "Don't Wanna Know" plus Gym Class Heroes' "Stereo Hearts." He also reached the summit on Country Airplay with Lady Antebellum's "Compass."