Wonderful Life

Hurts and Joseph Cross wrote it, with lyrics by Hurts; it was recorded in 2009 and produced by Hurts, Cross and Jonas Quant, mixed by Spike Stent and mastered by George Marino. Denmark had it first, as a digital single on May 3, 2010; Germany followed on CD on August 6 and the UK on August 22 and 23, 2010, as the second UK single. Hutchcraft told Digital Spy, as summarized by Songfacts, that it is based on two extremes, a man on a bridge and love at first sight, in which a woman stops him and they fall in love, and that it was more an idea than autobiography. The ending is left open.

In Sound on Sound, Anderson and Quant describe a track that began as an organ and vocal demo, with the drum groove built from found sounds: Anderson hit corridor walls with a shoe to make the basis of the snare, layered with a sample and pitch-shifted down, with Logic's Enverb reverb central and Bowie's "Low" as a cited influence. The original video, uploaded on April 21, 2009, was reportedly made for about 20 pounds, and 3AM Magazine's Guy Mankowski says it created a European mythology of their own. In 2010 it reached 21 in the UK and 2 in Germany, where it was triple Gold, 6 in Austria, 4 in Switzerland (Platinum) and 8 in Denmark. Setlist.fm lists it as their most-played song, with 295 plays, ahead of "Stay" at 286. Remixes include Mantronix, Arthur Baker and the Freemasons club edit. The upload we hold is the original black-and-white video.