Songfacts®:

• The third single from Handwritten, this became the first song by Shawn Mendes to appear on a Billboard airplay chart when it debuted at #36 on Pop Songs in June 2015.
• The song's music video was directed by Jon Jon Augustavo, who was also the man behind the lens on the Canadian's "Something Big" and "Life of the Party" clips. It finds Shawn getting beaten up in an empty parking lot by some unseen emotional force.
  
  Shawn has acting aspirations too. "The whole video is me getting beaten up by this thing that you can't see," he explained. "It was really fun. I got to do some acting in it and learn how to 'pretend' get hit. I love acting. I wanted to be an actor for a long time before I thought about singing. So I think definitely I'd love to be in movies."
  
  The final scene reveals that Shawn wasn't really getting beat up; it's all in his head. "Just filming the very last scene - I'm not all beat up anymore. I'm looking into the mirror and realizing that I was never hurt in the first place," he explained. "It was emotionally, the girl was hurting me."
• The song was written by Daniel Parker, Teddy Geiger and Daniel "Daylight" Kyriakides. Shawn Mendes takes pride in his songwriting abilities, though, and wasn't sure he wanted to record a tune that he hadn't penned himself. Mendes told Radio.com, "I was thinking, I don't want to sing [it] because I only want to sing songs that I write."
  
  "I was like, 'Well, let me just listen to this,' and I fell in love," he continued. "And man, it was just so cool to hear that. I remember before I heard it, I was like 'I really want to write a song where the bridge is a repetitive something, that just drills itself into your head.'"
  
  "'Needle in a thread gotta get you outta my head,'" Mendes added quoting the song's bridge."When that bridge hit I was like, 'This is the song.' I had to have it."
• Mendes has had some interesting encounters with this song. He Tweeted: "Its weird every time stitches comes on in the gym, especially when the soaking wet viking with a beard is singing a long."
• The song made a slow ascent to the top spot on the UK singles chart, reaching #1 in its 17th week. It was Shawn Mendes' first song to reach the peak position in the UK.
• Daniel Parker described the songwriting session with Geiger and Kyriakides which produced this song as a "blind date" set up by their publishing company, Big Deal Music. He recalled to Songwriter Universe:
  
  "I had written down the word 'Stitches' in my phone but I didn't know where I wanted to take it. Like most writers, I am constantly writing down words, titles, concepts—anything to spark a song somewhere down the road. I brought in the word for Teddy and I to vibe off of, and I came up with the line 'Now without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches.' We quickly came up with a melody for the chorus, and things evolved and the song was refined in a back and forth way.
  
  I focused on the topline and sculpting the concept. The producer Daylight was part of the second day of writing. He stepped in and developed the track and we laid down acoustic guitar and bass sounds. It was cool that we used all acoustic instruments."
• This won best single at BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards on October 23, 2016. Shawn Mendes also took home the prize for best international solo artist at the same ceremony.