[6] In 1981, English musician Vince Clarke left the electronic band Depeche Mode, citing touring fatigue and disdain for pop stardom as his reasons for the departure.

[7] Clarke was worried Mute Records would drop him as a result, and decided to write for the label a song called "Only You".

[9] Before Clarke presented the song to Miller, he offered it to Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, although the two of them rejected it.

[11] Clarke had heard Moyet perform with a few other bands in the pub circuit, and felt she was a good fit for the song.

[9] Moyet was reluctant at first, as she never aspired to perform pop songs, and noted "A part of me was thinking I'll never hear the end of it if I go and sing with this pretty boy".

That evening, publishing associates from Scandinavia heard the demo and liked it, which Clarke noted may have influenced Miller's opinion of the song.

[9] About a week later, Miller called Clarke and told him that he and Moyet should rerecord the song as a group and release it as a single.

[16] Stewart Mason of AllMusic noted the use of layered melodies performed on multiple monophonic synthesizers, which add what he called "depth and melodic substance" to the song.

[14] NME's Priva Elan wrote that the song may have initially been about Clarke's uneasy relationship with Depeche Mode, but Moyet turned the lyrics into the story of a person "looking through a scrapbook of photo-like memories".

[23] Upon its release, Richard Cook of NME noted that "Only You" "could quite easily have emanated from Depeche Mode" and added, "The emotional dial is on yearning and it trips through a melodic multiplication table that charms a passage to the heart by the end.

"[24] Betty Page of Sounds called it an "incongruous but addictive mix of distinctive Clarkian techno-melodies and rich is-it-a-she-or-a-he raspy R'n'B vocals from Alf".

[25] Sunie, writing for Record Mirror, felt that the song was "60s-derived" and noted, "Lovely stuff it is, too, though in parts it's naggingly reminiscent of 'Do That to Me One More Time'.

The song features in the films Can't Hardly Wait and The Chocolate War, and the closing scenes of the final episode of the British TV series The Office.

[50] In episode 7 of The Penguin ("Top Hat"), the song is playing in the background when young Oz returns home to his mother after leaving his brothers in the abandoned train station.

[51] An a cappella version by the Flying Pickets was even more successful than the 1982 original on the UK Singles Chart, being released towards the end of the following year and becoming the Christmas number one in 1983.

Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart on 3 May 1997 (his second in a row, and the first artist to do so),[67] and spent ten non-consecutive weeks at the top.

[72] A cover version performed by Selena Gomez was included on the soundtrack for 13 Reasons Why (2017), a series adaptation of the eponymous book.