In the Cold, Cold Night

[3] After the band's international breakthrough with White Blood Cells, they began to create material for their fourth studio album, Elephant.

[4] It is the first time Meg recorded leading vocals on any work of the band to that point; to gain confidence in her singing abilities, she sang more during their live performances and covered The Velvet Underground's "After Hours".

[5][6] Meg would sing lead once more on "Passive Manipulation" in their follow-up album Get Behind Me Satan (2005),[7] and speak on the bagpipe-heavy track "St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)" in Icky Thump (2007).

[9] Unlike the band's prior work, the song does not have any percussion and features a minimalist soundscape of guitars and bass pedals of a Hammond organ.

Matt Harvey of BBC said that "Meg speaks and (unlike her drumming) comes across all fey and, well, sort of pre-Raphaelite in a down-town Motor City kind of way.

[20] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called her vocals "childlike", praising its "stark, unaffected quality" and its "radical departure" from the band's usual sound.

"[25] Staff at The Quietus wrote: "her (Meg's) clear-voiced invocations of flickering flame carnality exude a shy, eye-of-the-storm poise which contrasts beautifully with the high voltage drama that hallmarks the song’s chart-topping parent album (Elephant)".