It Was Always You

Composition and recording

The song was written by Adam Levine, Sam Martin, Jason Evigan, Marcus Lomax, Jordan Johnson, and Stefan Johnson, and produced by Jason Evigan and The Monsters and the Strangerz. Lyrically an upbeat ballad about friends becoming lovers, it features Levine singing in falsetto over synthesizers, with lines such as "Woke up sweating from a dream" and "It was always you." E! Online's Chima Simone suggested the lyrics might refer to Levine's wife Behati Prinsloo.

MTV News' Christina Garibaldi noted the central message as "Sometimes what you’re looking for is right in front of you." Levine is joined by band members Jesse Carmichael, Matt Flynn, Mickey Madden, PJ Morton, and James Valentine. Departing from the band's usual pop rock and their previous single "Maps," the song incorporates electronic synthesizers and is electropop, with a sound compared to 1980s music. Idolator's Mike Wass described it as "unmistakably Maroon 5," while Music Times' Carolyn Menyes wrote that it "takes the band's new poppy direction and makes it dark."

Live performances

Maroon 5 debuted "It Was Always You" live on August 26, 2014, at the iHeartRadio Theater in Burbank. Four days later, they played it on ESPN Saturday Night Football, and the performance video came out that same day. The band then brought the song to The Today Show in New York on September 1 and to the 2014 iTunes Festival in London on September 11. In total, the group has performed the track 48 times.