Songfacts®:

• On "Can't Say No" Matthew Murphy, frontman of The Wombats, sings about the kind of reckless abandon that leads to bad decisions: stealing cars, throwing parties in cemeteries, or embarking on ill-advised journeys to the Far East. Murphy admitted to The Independent that while he occasionally experiences fleeting moments of contentment, they are still tainted by his ever-present urge to just go for it. "I want to escape," he said. "I want to either switch my brain off or toss myself in the Albert Dock, or whatever."
• Murphy delved deeper into the song's meaning to BBC Radio 1's Sian Eleri, explaining that it's about making decisions that benefit no one, least of all his future self. "I never truly learned to live 'in' the moment," he confessed. "I was only ever living 'for' the moment, as if that moment was going to be my last."
• The Wombats initially wrote the song for their 2018 album Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, but it never quite made the cut. The chorus just wasn't right, and so, like a song constantly tapping its creator on the shoulder, it lingered, waiting for its time. They eventually laid it down for the band's 2025 album Oh! The Ocean.
  
  Murphy recalled, "The verses are seven years old and the chorus is brand new. I think I fell back in love with it when I changed the chorus just two months before we started recording."
  
  His effort paid off - it's his favorite track from the album.
• John Congleton (St. Vincent, Death Cab for Cutie) produced the track during sessions in Echo Park, LA.
• An unexpected and transformative experience Murphy had on a family holiday inspired the Oh! The Ocean album. "I'd had a particularly funky morning and didn't sleep well," he told NME. "I took my family down to the beach, and the kids were off playing. I was just stood there looking at the ocean. It was a very mushroomy experience."
  
  Murphy went on to describe the overwhelming sense of wonder he felt. "I saw the ocean and the waves as if for the first time... it was the most awestruck I've ever been, really."
• The Logan Fields-directed music video was filmed in Manhattan Beach and El Segundo (where A Tribe Called Quest left their wallet), both in the Los Angeles area. The scenes showing Murphy chasing a reversing car only for it to suddenly shift gears and chase him instead is as a metaphor for the magnetic pull of self-destructive behavior: illogical yet irresistibly tempting.