There’s a few references for people to pick up on in there—‘Some Velvet Morning’, Tracy Island. Those references are just me being a smartarse. The song, not to get too heavy, is about that uncertainty that comes with love sometimes. Wondering where you are with it all. That’s the undertone for the tune, but I threw in a Thunderbirds reference too. Just because.

That particular bit is like the thing Lil Wayne and Drake do. We’ve been listening to a lot of their stuff recently. I like that thing they do where they talk about something backwards, so they talk about it but then say what it actually is on the next line. It’s hard to explain but I guess it’s a little nod to that idea. So I say, ‘I’m a puppet on a string’, just before mentioning Tracy Island. That’s what it’s about—uncertainty.

—Alex Turner, NME