The Muse frontman told BBC Radio 1: “I got approached about a year ago to write this song for the Olympics and we were going to work on it with someone, I can't say who, a good pianist though. So I wrote this song with that in mind, that's why it's got a lot of guitar and piano at the same time, which normally I don't do. That went away for some reason though.”

 

He went on to say: “It sounded like it was going to be a good song anyway, at that time it didn't have lyrics, it was just a big musical idea, involving a choir and stuff. So as time went on and we got asked to play the opening ceremony, we thought 'We've got to play this'. We got the Olympic people in to listen and they loved it.

 

“It's trying to get into that mindset of being completely determined to win, doing it against all the odds, the conviction and the truth of just wanting to win. I wanted to tune into the competitiveness of it all.”

 

The track, which you can listen to here, has been chosen as the official song of the 2012 London Olympics. It will be played when the athletes enter the stadium, in the lead up to the medal ceremony and as the theme for all international TV coverage.