During a Q&A at Sundance Film Festival, John Carney said that this film was a dedication to mothers, similar to how Sing Street (2016) was "for brothers everywhere"
Flora, in real life, is the daughter of Bono from U2.
Many of the locations are from around the North inner city of Dublin.
Reunites director John Carney with actors Jack Reynor, Don Wycherley, Kelly Thornton, Keith McErlean and Marcella Plunkett from his previous film Sing Street (2016). Plunkett was also in Carney's earlier musical film, Once (2006).
In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, John Carney spoke about the real-life personal inspiration for the film: "The germ of the idea was the gift of music. It's the idea that it's not just something that you stumble upon; it's something that somebody gives you. So it's a very special gift when somebody does give that to you, and my mother gave me a guitar at a very important time when I was young. It wasn't that she identified something in me; it was that she invested her hard-earned money in me, and that is a very important part of parenting. We think that if we just spend tons of time with our kids, our genius is going to rub off on them and they'll be great. But you actually have to decipher their needs and their wants, and you have to work really hard. You have to earn money and provide not only food, but also other things along the way. And sometimes, you don't. Sometimes, it's good to push back and say no. But this was one thing that my mother really got right, which was, 'I am going to do this for him. I'm going to buy him this guitar.' And it was a lifeline to me. So I was obsessed with that story, and I wanted to dramatize that for very different characters than my mother and myself."