Band producer and songwriter Johnny Jewel said:

The songs we cover are all about a drastic change or a traumatic event in my life, tracks that define a certain period. Right after my Dad died in 1993 I moved from Houston to Austin. I worked in a grocery shop for $3.85 an hour and a guy who lived above a print shop let me sleep downstairs. When his girlfriend came over they’d smoke pot, make out and blast Neil Young. A couple of months later Kurt Cobain killed himself and the lyric “it’s better to burn out than to fade away” was part of his suicide note. I was really into Nirvana and I identified with Cobain in terms of not feeling like I belonged. […] Ruth (Ruth Radelet, Chromatics' singer) and I broke up and I had moved to Montreal. I came back to Portland and it was the first time we’d talked. We had this five or six hour long conversation and I said, “Let’s track this song”. She was like, “You asshole.” And I said, “Let’s just try it.” She nailed it first time. It was just a guitar and vocals live and it was incredible. I want the music to be at those real moments. We tracked it and for me it was a symbol again of me moving out, shifting my life and losing somebody: my father, Ruth, moving on. It also became a symbol of the band’s rebirth. Also I wanted to remind ourselves that, despite dabbling with electronics, we come from song-based, indie rock culture. It’s about carrying that torch.