"Writing to Reach You" is the first single from Travis' second album, The Man Who. The single was released in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. It earned Travis their first appearance on Top of the Pops.
The song was written by Francis Healy, who admitted that he took the guitar chords from Oasis' "Wonderwall"; as an overt acknowledgement of this, the song contains the lyric "what's a Wonderwall anyway?". In 2004, both "Writing to Reach You" and "Wonderwall" were mixed with Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams in the popular mash up, "Boulevard of Broken Songs".
The video for "Writing to Reach You" was directed by John Hardwick. It featured Healy walking in the countryside and being attacked by a pair of innocent looking schoolchildren. They pelt him with stones and even ambush him with a Bf109.
