Songfacts®:

• Fallen Empires breaks new ground for Alternative Rock band Snow Patrol with several tracks featuring a more dance friendly sound. Frontman Gary Lightbody said this electro-dance call-to-arms club anthem is a, "proper night out track." He continued, "It's full blown electro. There's always been a dance element to our music, but this time we've been a bit bolder with it. I'm looking forward to hearing some of these songs in a club because it'll get people going. I always see people walking off the dance floor when they play our records, we're not that kind of band. 'I'll Never Let Go' might change that."
• The song is powered by the sound of dozens of different drums picked up by percussionist Jonny Quinn from a local music store in LA. "I was inspired by the drummers I used to see on Venice Beach in Santa Monica," he said. "They were always out there playing - some of them were great, some of them were s--t, but they all had different drums and drumming styles. I just went down to the store and picked up loads of different kits. I started playing them and we layered drum over drum over drum. It was so painful playing them all. By the end of it, my hands had totally swollen up."
• The song features the vocals of the LA Inner City Mass Gospel Choir who come from Compton in south central Los Angeles.
• This is the opening track of Fallen Empires. The album is bookended by two stories of separate homeless people that Lightbody met in Santa Monica. Here's what he told Billboard magazine regarding this song: "I'd meet him pretty much every day at some point and he would always not remember who I was… [One day] I said I said 'take care of yourself, you know, man.' And [as] I was walking way, he shouted after me, 'I'll never let go, don't worry about me. I'll never let go.' And okay, can I make that into a song, I flat out asked him and he was like 'Yeah man, you do that.'"