The song was later released in 2007 as a single from their fourth studio album, Every Second Counts (2006), with added string instrumentation.

The song was written by frontman Tom Higgenson after meeting Delilah DiCrescenzo, a nationally ranked American steeplechase and cross country runner,[6] through a mutual friend around 2002.

"[7] "Hey There Delilah" is written in the key of D major,[8] with a tempo of 104 beats per minute in common time.

The band's fourth album, Every Second Counts, has "Hey There Delilah" as a bonus track with a string section written and performed by Eric Remschneider augmenting the original recording, also present in the song's official music video.

In a split-screen, it shows Delilah, played by model Melissa McNelis, who attends college in New York City.

[16] Music critic Josh Tyrangiel called it "an intimate love song that's damn near universal".

Tyrangiel praised the Plain White T's for managing to make another "aching guy reaching out to distant girl song feel fresh", singling out singer Tom Higgenson's otherwise imperfect voice and "nasal delivery [for making] the nearly-comic sincerity of the lyrics seem completely genuine".

[4] In 2023, an AI cover of the song using a vocal model based on Kanye West was brought to mainstream attention.

[88][89][90] In 2024, comedian Snowd4y and fellow Canadian rapper Drake published a rewritten version of this song, infused with Toronto slang and titled "Wah Gwan Delilah.

[92][93] The excessive audio manipulation and poor overall quality of the song led many to falsely believe it was AI-generated, including the Plain White T's who captioned the rendition as leaving them "too stunned to speak.

[96][97][98][99][100] The Plain White T's frontman Tom Higgenson reacted to the cover with confusion, nonetheless remarking that it was "cool, whatever".

[101] Drake performed the song live for the first time at labelmate PartyNextDoor's Toronto concert on August 2 later in the year.

Expanding on the story within the song, the series is described as being a romantic dramedy telling the contemporary fairy tale of a long-distance flirtation between a struggling singer-songwriter and a New York City university student.

The songwriter pledges to write a song for the young woman on the night they meet, and that promise changes their lives in unexpected ways.