Songfacts®:

• Wesley Schultz's interest in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy was aroused by a Mockingjay pin that Patti Smith was wearing at Clive Davis' pre-Grammys party. The Lumineers vocalist started reading the books and penned this fragile slow builder about protagonist Katniss Everdeen's best friend and hunting partner Gale Hawthorne, who is also a romantic rival to Peeta Mellark. "I was interested in his perspective, " Schultz told Billboard magazine. "He is a man in the shadows, left waiting in the wings as Katniss takes the stage with Peeta."
• The Lumineers returned to the franchise for its third installment, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), when they were tapped to compose the music for "The Hanging Tree," which was sung by Jennifer Lawrence.
• Media placements have often provided boosts for the band's career, starting with their debut single "Ho Hey," which first reached audiences through its appearance on the WB series Hart Of Dixie in 2011 before becoming a smash hit. In 2013, the same year "Gale Song" landed on the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, the CW historical drama Reign adopted the band's "Scotland" for its theme song. The Lumineers weren't able to get into the studio for a few years while they were on tour, so it was helpful to get some new music out through other avenues while fans awaited their next album, Cleopatra (2016).
• The song, which was also included on the Cleopatra album, borrowed remnants from previously scrapped songwriting sessions. Schultz told BMI in 2016: "For 'Gale Song,' the verse, the bridge and the chorus all came at different moments and were extracted from other songs, pushed out of this song's body and pulled into this other one like a Frankenstein. We ended up really loving it, so we recorded it when we were making our record, and it fit really nicely."