[2] The song, written by band members Joe Newman, Thom Green and Gus Unger-Hamilton "in about 20 minutes", was built around a riff that Newman would play during rehearsals and features an organ solo from Unger-Hamilton, while Green's performance on the song was deliberately performed "as clichéd as possible," with "none of [his] personality in it".

[4] In the United States, it entered modern rock radio on 15 July 2014 and subsequently peaked at number two on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.

[5] The song also debuted and peaked at number 99 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their first entry on the chart and their most successful single in the country to date.

[8] It depicts a group of American teenagers doing various activities of leisure, including drinking beer, setting off fireworks, driving, and swimming in the Guadalupe River.

"Left Hand Free" is also used in the pilot episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, "Amazing Fantasy," directly alluding to its earlier use in Civil War.