It peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in its first week of physical release and became a moderate to minor hit in Belgium, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

Smith and Lay were also part of the choir, along with producer Jacknife Lee, audio engineer Tom McFall and singer Anne Struther, all of whom were chosen purely because they were in the studio at the time.

[1] The intro of the song is an unaccompanied drum beat played for 8 seconds, at which point the lead vocals and piano, both by Tom Smith, enter.

The song ends with Smith singing the second part of the chorus, accompanied by the lead guitar, with an abrupt fade out on the final syllable.

The music video for "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors" was filmed in and around Prague on the Vltava,[3] and depicts, in a nonlinear manner, a young girl with the ability to walk on water escaping from a hospital, escaping via railway lines, a red light district and a Romani encampment to the river Vltava where she attempts to row away, only to run back across the water surface to avoid a police boat, all intercut with clips of Editors playing the song in an abandoned ship.

[5] Most initial reviews were positive: NME described the song as "audacious, certainly, and very good to boot", adding that "Editors have found their life force in death itself",[7] while MusicOMH stated that "at 5 minutes long it's worth every second.