Regarding the meaning of the song, Matthew Bellamy has said: "It's about a semi-fear of the evolution of technology, and how in reality it's destroying all humanity.

My fear is that we can't control it because it's moving faster than we are, so the song's setting myself in a location in the future where the body is no longer important and everyone's plugged into a network.

"[3] "New Born" first started out as a guitar-based piece played in soundcheck during the Showbiz tour back in 1999, and the piano intro was written afterwards.

During the recording of the album in the David Bottrill sessions, the band experimented with using Bellamy's voice for the arpeggios instead of the piano, but decided that this was too "abstract" and removed it during post-recording.

On the band's Simulation Theory World Tour, the song was played in the form of a medley including "Stockholm Syndrome", "Assassin", "Reapers", and "The Handler".