"The Last Man on Earth" was the band's first single in almost 3 years, following an extensive tour through 2018 and early 2019 for their second album, Visions of a Life. Frontwoman Ellie Rowsell said this about the lyrics of the song: "It's about the arrogance of humans.
I'd just read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and I had written the line 'Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god' in my notes. But then I thought: 'Uh, your peculiar travel suggestion isn't a dancing lesson from god, it's just a travel suggestion! Why does everything need to mean something more?'"