Songfacts®:

• Here, Tom Grennan looks in the mirror and faces the harsh truth: he messed up a damn good romance.
  
  I don't know what to tell you, I don't know what to say
  I got into my head, I'm sorry I threw it away
  
  Since he stopped seeing his ex, Grennan has fought an uphill battle. She's stuck in his mind, haunting his every thought, and he can't help but wonder if she's feeling the same way.
  
  I could be at yours on Friday
  Tonight's at the place we started
  It's a long way back from "sorry", but here I go
  How does it feel?
• Does his former partner long for that spark they had, yearning for a second chance at their fiery romance? "This song is a reflection of a moment in my life when I realized, I had let something unreal slip," said Grennan. "It's a reflection on the excitement that comes when you know you have a chance to rebuild. It's exciting, fun, and gives you the energy to want to get up and do what you believe in!"
• Grennan co-wrote "How Does It Feel" with:
  
  Former One Direction singer Liam Payne
  
  Longtime Liam Payne collaborator Jamie Scott
  
  Cleo Tighe of the songwriting and production collective The Six
  
  Tom Mann, formerly of the English-Irish boy band, Stereo Kicks
  
  Swedish songwriter Carl Falk, who helped pen many of One Direction's early singles
  
  Carl Falk also produced the track with Ryan Linvill, a regular cohort of Olivia Rodrigo's songwriting partner Dan Nigro.
• Grennan recorded "How Does It Feel" for his third album, What Ifs & Maybes. He began laying down the record in April 2021 and finished in July 2022.
  
  "For this whole album, I've definitely made a conscious decision for it to be a record that people can just dance to," said Grennan. "An album where people can listen in their own time, or fans can come to a show, and they can have that sense of escapism. I want them to feel they have no stress and no worries when they're listening to these songs. So, I made that conscious decision to write some up-tempo songs that can live in a party world. And 'How Does It Feel' massively does that."
• Speaking to Apple Music, Grennan compared the song to a journey. "It's like getting in a car, starting it up, and going, 'Right, I'm going to pick you up and we're going to go, and where we end up, who knows? But it's going to be full of passion, full of fun, and it's going to be a good time,'" he said.
  
  "It's about realizing that I had something good, we had something good, but life sometimes pushes you into another place," Grennan continued. "But then you go, 'Oh, hold on a minute. Let's go revisit that.'"