Songfacts®:

• According to Q Magazine's 1001 Greatest Songs, Fran Healy of Travis says he basically borrowed this from "Wonderwall" by Oasis: "I just changed the rhythm and melody. You can sing 'Writing To Reach You' over 'Wonderwall,' and vice versa." As an acknowledgment, the song contains the lyric "What's a Wonderwall anyway?"
• According to Healy, the song was part inspiration and part accidental intoxication. He told Jaxsta in 2020: "Boxing Day, 1995. The band had moved into a flat together in Glasgow, and it was the coldest winter since records began. I had two propane gas heaters on the go with no ventilation. I think I slightly gassed myself and I got quite high. We were massive Oasis fans, and I was sitting and strumming the chords to 'Wonderwall' and also thinking about a song by The Connells and something just clicked. That's where 'Writing To Reach You' came from."
• At the time, Healy was also reading Franz Kafka's Letters To Felice, which inspired the lovelorn lyrics. "He wrote to this woman he was in love with hundreds of times, yet never met her. None of her replies are in the book, so you have to piece together their relationship," he explained. "I'm pleased we managed to draw on Kafka and Oasis in the same song."
• Noel Gallagher of Oasis became an ardent supporter of the band and joined Travis on the US leg of their The Man Who world tour.
• This is the lead single from Travis' second studio album, The Man Who. While critics were wary of the Scottish band's shift from rock to melodic Britpop, they changed their opinion when the album went to #1 in the UK. At the 2000 Brit Awards, it won the prize for Best Album and Travis was named Best British Group.
• In the music video, directed by John Hardwick (Blur, Arctic Monkeys), Fran Healy's walk through the countryside turns precarious when a couple of children set their sights on him. They pummel him with rocks, shoot him with arrows, and even launch an attack from a fighter plane.
• This was used in these TV series:
  
  Samantha Who? ("My Best Friend's Boyfriend" - 2009)
  Cold Case ("The Plan" - 2004)
  Night Visions ("If a Tree Falls.../The Occupant" - 2001)
  Daria ("Lucky Strike" - 2001)
• In 2004, American DJ Party Ben included this and "Wonderwall" in a mashup called "Boulevard Of Broken Songs," along with Green Day's "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" and Eminem's "Sing For The Moment" (which samples Aerosmith's "Dream On"). The song gained traction on radio stations worldwide after being featured on Party Ben's Sixx Mixx radio show and being made available as an mp3 on his website.