Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Adam Lazzara mentioned on his Formspring account (one of many social networks of the 2000s that didn't survive) that this was his favorite song from past albums that he had written. It is speculated that the song is about his former alcohol/drug abuse that got particularly bad while he was staying in Miami. The lyrics, "You have to, you just have to trust me, who ever I was then I could never be again" refer to how he has since recovered and changed as a person.
• Taking Back Sunday were trying to shed their emo image by making a sprawling rock album for their major-label debut. As a result, Louder Now (2006) fearlessly goes against the grain of what was popular on mid-2000s emo records, with "Miami" going for a new wave '80s production inspired by The Cure. Fred Mascherino, whose shredding guitar solo defines the track, told The Aquarian in 2006:
  
  "The song 'Miami' was totally produced differently than anything in our genre. We put the drums in the smallest room in the studio and that gave it an '80s, tight sound, not a 'big room' sound. For the guitars on the choruses, we wanted it to sound as much like The Cure as possible, so it's all clean guitars."