When talking about her sophomore album to NikkieTutorials, Madison says:

I’m proud of the whole thing but specifically my favourite song is this one I wrote for my little brother.

She additionally says while describing the song:

I don’t wanna consider it a ballad, it’s on the guitar. It’s slower but it’s not a ballad.

Madison says via Rolling Stone:

“There’s been a lot of emotions and experiences that we’ve shared over the last 12 years of me doing this with my life, which has then affected his life in turn,” she says. “Becoming older and being able to reflect on how my choices impacted him without me even knowing they were going to, because I was also just such a young kid.”

That’s about my little brother, Ryder. He’s such a huge part of my life. He’s been with me through everything, and with a lot of therapy in the last couple of years, I’ve been able to acknowledge some of my own guilt surrounding him, because I had a lot of that. For a long time, I forced him into this shadow behind me without meaning to. I made my life seem more important than his, whether it’s with family or in the public. I felt really guilty for that, and I didn’t know how to deal with it or express it. I had that lyric, “Just two kids caught in the crossfire,” in my head for some reason.

– via Interview Magazine

This is the song, my song, all of them are my songs, but this is my song. Whenever I get asked the question, “What is your favorite song on the album?” It’s not an easy question to answer, but when I am forced to give an answer, the answer is always “Ryder”. […] I’ve always wanted to write something, and I think this kind of goes back into what I said in my other video about like, writing my book, which was kind of like a journey, my mental health, my story, whatever. That really helped me to be able to feel like I could articulate some of these difficult things to talk about. And this was one of them, and it actually wasn’t difficult at all, and it actually wasn’t difficult at all, it was like a really beautiful, fun writing experience. Like, we all really enjoyed writing it. […] Yeah, so I feel like I just really wanted to write this song for my brother, about my brother. I feel like I have written a lot of songs that are you know, about romantic […] romantic relationships. And I think that is obviously standard, and totally fine, and I have plenty of romantic songs that are on this album. I think there are so many different relationships that life has to offer you, and the one with your sibling is very important, and I think it can also be very complex. Ryder has played definitely one of, if not the most important roles in my life. Felt like it was time to give him a song. This one’s for you Ryder. Shout out to Ryder, we love you.

– via TikTok

With this song being so emotional and about my brother, he still annoys the fuck outta me to this day sometimes, and we still fight, and we’re not just like holding hands, giving out on the street like, “Oh, I love Ryder.” I think it’s important to note that with songs like this that sound like they’re just like, “Wow, you must be in such a healed place and you guys are probably just so healthy, and amazing.” Like that’s not realistic, that’s not real life. So, Ryder I love you, but you’re still fucking annoying.

—via Genius Interview