Songfacts®:

• Frontman Justin Young penned this song in Los Angeles. He told NME how the track deals with the subject of going home with someone but wishing you were with someone else. "It's like a monster in my head," he said.
• The video, directed by CANADA, is a pastiche of classic early '80s sci-fi films. The Barcelona-based international art collective were also responsible for the band's previous clip for "Handsome," which was a homage to Hong Kong kung-fu films.
  
  "With 'Dream Lover' we wanted to continue that b-movie aesthetic and bubblegum escapism we achieved in the 'Handsome' video, and continue collaborating with CANADA,' explained Justin Young. "To me Dream Lover sounds otherworldly, and the perfect combination of retro and future and so I think the theme of the video fits the song and us as a band perfectly. We've always been fans of camp space adventure and so it was pretty fun getting to bring one of our own to life."
• The song came together during winter in New York, when freak snow blizzards shut down huge chunks of the city. "There was six foot of snow at some points - Snowmageddon!" Justin Young recalled to XFM's Danielle Perry. "There is that kind of icy, quite tense sound... although ironically it was actually written in LA. Sunny LA!"
• Some critics have noted the song's tonal resemblance to Arctic Monkeys' "Do I Wanna Know?" Asked by NME about the similarities between the two songs, Justin Young replied: "Honest answer, we definitely had a conversation at one point where we said, 'Do you think anyone's going to make this lazy comparison, because this is a four/five-note riff over this slow-burning groove and we're both British rock bands.' Both producers said no and we never spoke about it again."