The song's lyrics are a confident statement about Ride's musical talent relative to the rest of the shoegaze scene, which is why the band wanted to release it as the album's first single.

[4][5] Despite clocking in at an unconventionally long eight minutes and seventeen seconds, Creation Records founder Alan McGee demanded that "Leave Them All Behind" be released as the lead single off of Going Blank Again, leaping out of his chair and "jumping around like a demented gibbon" upon hearing it for the first time, the band recalled.

Producer Alan Moulder used a fast click track to cut the organ sound in and out of the studio so that it played intermittently rather than continuously.

[7] The song's main guitar riff chords developed when the band was under the influence of drugs in Amsterdam doing a jam session during a soundcheck.

Drummer Loz Colbert was listening to hip hop, funk and The Who during recording, resulting in a snare-heavy performance containing triplets similar to Keith Moon's which he felt was "cyclical and flowing", fitting the song's nature.

"Wheels turning round, into alien ground" was the line that initially stood out to Bell, who decided to begin the song with it.

He called it "the high point of Ride's career" but still believed that the band as a whole fell short of reaching their goals of topping the charts while pushing musical boundaries as far as possible.

"[5][9] Pitchfork wrote, "Every single element of 'Leave Them All Behind' is voluminous, but not just in sheer loudness: It's overwhelming, not oppressive, and the sonic expanse is even more mindblowing with this remastering job.