Songfacts®:

• This R&B-influenced pop number finds Sam Smith hooking up with Normani. The collaboration came about totally by chance. The British singer was writing with Stargate and Jimmy Napes in a Los Angeles studio while the former Fifth Harmony member was recording in the next room over. The two decided to join forces.
• The sultry song is about hooking with someone new on the dance floor in the wake of heartbreak. Sam Smith wrote the track during his 2018 The Thrill of it All tour. "For me it bottles everything I was feeling whilst juggling my personal life and touring," he said.
• Sam Smith and Normani performed the song live together for the first time during 93.3 FLZ's Jingle Ball 2019 at Amalie Arena on December 1, 2019 in Tampa, Florida.
• Sam Smith came out as non-binary in 2019. Writing "Dancing With A Stranger" helped trigger Smith's gender transition.
  
  Smith explained to Billboard that he had just gone through a breakup and the last thing he wanted to do was write a sad song. The singer had been listening to sexy music that made he feel better, so he wanted to pen a song about going to clubs and kissing people.
  
  "The song launched me into a really beautiful space of writing and freedom," he added. "There's a femininity within that song that has ignited a flame within me."
• This landed the Song of the Year honor at the BMI London Awards 2020. BMI gives the prize each year to the most-performed song in the United States by a UK or European songwriter.
• Songwriters Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi brought legal action against Smith, Normani and their respective teams, claiming "Dancing With A Stranger" copied their 2017 song of the same title.
  
  In a ruling issued on September 6, 2023, a federal judge in California dismissed the lawsuit. Judge Hsu ruled that the two songs were not substantially similar, and the phrase "dancing with a stranger" was not unique enough to be protected by copyright.
  
  The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court reversed the court's dismissal of the lawsuit on May 1, 2025. Appeal judges said that a jury could find the hooks of the two songs to be "substantially similar," meaning the litigation should proceed.