Songfacts®:

• If you're ever feeling awkward and weird, wondering what's wrong with you, don't worry, it's just a symptom of being human.
  
  A very comforting song with a gentle strumming acoustic guitar, soaring strings, and delicate piano notes, it gives us permission to celebrate our unique qualities and embrace life's ups and downs. The song was written by Shinedown's frontman Brent Smith and bass player Eric Bass, who suffers from clinical depression. Bass told Songfacts:
  
  "We wrote it very quickly, and it's very on-the-nose for how I was feeling at the time. It's always emotional to play."
• Brent Smith shared his thoughts on this outsiders anthem in an interview with American Songwriter. "I think about people and how they can stand in the modern day, just with their own psyche and how people view them," he said. "Stay true to who you are."
• Shinedown have a staff of about 70 when they're on tour. This song was partly inspired by them.
  
  I got my invitation to the lunatic ball
  And my friends are coming too
  How about you?
  
  Some of Shinedown's tour staff have been with them for over 15 years. Smith explained to Apple Music the above lyric is about all the people in their lives who inspire them to be better individuals. "It's also about finding your true friends, the people that mean the most to you, that you want to share your existence with," he said.
• Lewis Cater directed the video, which was shot in London. "There’s something quite magical about filming in London in December and we quite literally captured this underneath the festive glow of Westminster," he told PromoNews.
  
  Cater also shot Shinedown's video for "Dead Don't Die."
• "A Symptom of Being Human" caught on right away with fans and became one of Shinedown's most popular songs. It topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart dated January 20, 2024 to become the band's 19th visit to the survey's summit, extending their record for the most #1s in the history of the tally.
• This song is a live favorite, not just for fans but also for the band. "I don't have to play bass on it, so I get to play piano and guitar and enjoy the moment a bit more," Eric Bass said on the Songfacts Podcast.
• The opening line, "I can still remember me and Miss November Rain," is a reference to the Guns N' Roses classic "November Rain," released in 1991 when Brent Smith was 12 years old.
  
  "That line is thinking of a simpler time," Smith said. "Almost like a security blanket in a lot of ways, because 'A Symptom of Being Human' is ultimately a song about understanding that we want people to live to fight another day and that we're all works in progress."