[1] The song was written by Joe Newman, Gus Unger-Hamilton and Thom Sonny Green and produced by Charlie Andrew.

In an interview with NPR, the band said:[2] The last track on the record is based on Richard Llewelyn's book How Green Was My Valley?, about a small mining community in nineteenth-century Wales.

The song takes the form of a hymn, and so we went to Ely Cathedral[3] in Cambridgeshire to record the boys' choir and the organ there, to add a church feeling to the track.

The music video for "Pleader" was released on 15 November 2017, directed by Isaiah Seret.

[4] The song was remixed by Mr Jukes, a music project of British musician Jack Steadman of the band Bombay Bicycle Club.