Songfacts®:

• Travis's frontman Fran Healy told Yahoo! the story of this song: "It was written while watching MTV with the sound down. There was a thing on about swing beat. So I started singing this song - I was writing at the time, I was watching the telly and playing the guitar and humming along - and I got this cool little melody, and when it naturally got to a sort of chorus-y part, I started singing, 'Swing... If you swing, swing, swing, swing.' And I was imagining someone pushing someone on a swing. It was just that feeling when you're a child on a swing - it's the coolest feeling! And so, I played to the guys the next in the studio and everyone played along, and we recorded it as a little out take, just to get the idea down. During that, it changed from 'swing, swing, swing' to 'sing, sing, sing' halfway through the chorus. It was half and half."
  When Healy arrived back home that night and listened to it in his house, he realized the song had switched from the joy of children playing in the playground to the recuperative powers of singing. He told Yahoo: "I thought it was really cute, kinda charming. So the words in the verse I kind of directed at Nora, my fiancée."
• This song went on to become the band's biggest hit to date and a favorite with buskers. Healy told Yahoo!: "'Sing' - You could replace that word with 'Dance' or 'Cry' or 'Laugh' or just 'Let Go.' 'Cause as an expression, when you're a child, you sing all the time. And then when you get older, you don't - you just go, 'I don't want to, my voice is crap.' But when you're a kid, you don't care! And I think that's what you should always have - a little bit of that still in you. People look at people in the street that sing like they're mad, like, 'What are you singing for?' But it's about having fun and feeling good and all that stuff."
• The song's video featured a food fight between the band members, which was later re-enacted when they performed the song on Top of the Pops.
• This featured in the 2002 Adam Sandler movie Mr Deeds. It also has been included on a number of different television soundtracks, including Torchwood ("Greeks Bearing Gifts" - 2006) and the US version of The Office ("The Banker" - 2010, "The Client" - 2005).
• The Invisible Band is Travis' third studio album. The title refers to the band's status after the success of its predecessor, The Man Who, as - says Healy - "having famous songs, but not being famous themselves." The release quickly went to #1 in the UK and peaked at #39 in the US, making the band more visible than ever.