The song was written in 1999 by frontman Fran Healy, produced by Nigel Godrich and recorded at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles.

Filmed in Pasadena, California over three days, it features Travis attending a dinner party that eventually turns into a massive food fight.

When Travis appeared on British music programme Top of the Pops, the band members threw pies at each other and the audience while the track played in the background.

Fran Healy explained on the band's official website that he wrote the song in 1999, the day before he planned to go to the studio to record the B-sides for their 1999 single" "Turn".

[1] He came up with the song as he watched a swingbeat video on MTV, leading him to compose a basic melody called "Swing" on his guitar.

[1] The following day, after recording the B-side "We Are Monkeys", Healy began to play the song's chords while the track was rewinding, and the rest of his bandmates soon joined him.

[2] Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer described the song as "front-porch blues, if your front porch opens onto central London".

"[8] Healy also stated that Kryst partially inspired the word, as she was vocally shy and too nervous to sing around him, which he found vexing.

"[12] Another music director, Rainer Gruhn of German radio station Hundert 6, praised the song's "modern" sound and "wonderful" production.

[20] In a review of The Invisible Band on AllMusic, MacKenzie Wilson described "Sing" as "charming" and said that the banjo sets the track apart from traditional acoustic simplicities, referring to the instrument as a "mainstay".

[21] Pitchfork writer Kristin Sage Rockermann said that while the lyrics are "banal" and the song as a whole is "cheesy", Healy's voice sounds "passionately expressive" as well as mature and wise.

[23] In 2015, the staff of Pop Rescue wrote that Healy's vocals flawlessly complement the instrumentation and were unable to identify any flaws with the song.

[27] On 1 July 2022, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) awarded the song a gold certification for sales and streams of over 400,000 units in the country.

[34] The song spent 23 weeks on the French chart and came in at number 53 on the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP) year-end ranking for 2001 as well as earning a silver certification in October of that year.

As the grandfather clock changes to exactly eight o'clock, the main instrumentation of the song begins, and Travis are seen riding bikes in tuxedos.

The band arrives at the party, and dinner is served, but Travis, puzzled about how to eat their refined meals, cause a few accidents at the table.

The video changes to slow motion as a female dinner guest throws an entire octopus across the table that lands on a man's head.

[51] The final clip of the video shows a female maid (played by Kryst) entering the room and getting soiled with more pies.

[56] All songs were written by Fran Healy, except "Killer Queen" by Freddie Mercury, "Ring Out the Bell" by Dougie Payne, and "You Don't Know What I'm Like" by Andy Dunlop.