Songfacts®:

• The "drive by" in this song is a one-night stand. It finds Train frontman Pat Monahan doing his best to convince a girl that their encounter is not just a "drive by," but the beginning of a lasting relationship. Speaking with Digital Spy, he explained that it's about meeting his wife, Amber, whom he married in 2007.
  
  "I really did not expect I was going to fall in love with her that day," he said. "I said I'm never going to move to Washington where you live and I'm never going to have kids or get married, just so you know. So we've been married five years, we live in Washington and we have two children and that whole threat worked out great."
• "Drive By" was the first single from Train's sixth studio album, California 37. Their previous album, Save Me San Francisco in 2009, came after some down years that were tough both professionally and personally, especially for Monahan, who went through a divorce around 2005. To get their mojo back, they brought in hit songwriters and top producers, resulting in the inescapable hit "Hey Soul Sister." That one was a collaboration with Espionage, the Norwegian songwriting and production duo of Espen Lind and Amund Bjorklund. This same team worked on "Drive By," producing the song and co-writing it with Monahan.
• Train started performing this song during their 2011 Summer tour. It wasn't released until it was made available on iTunes January 10, 2012, a week after they played the halftime show at the 2012 Orange Bowl in Miami.
• Pat Monahan called on some imagery from his youth for the line, "Just a shy guy looking for a two-ply Hefty bag to hold my love." Growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania, he worked at a restaurant where he and his friends would steal beer by putting it in Hefty garbage bags and retrieving it from the trash after hours.
  
  At parties when they drank that beer, he could be reserved. At one of them, someone came up to him and greeted him warmly as "shy guy," which he appreciated.
  
  Monahan says Hefty sent him free garbage bags after the song came out.
• Train's singles tend to gradually build momentum, but this song came in hot. It debuted at #60 on the Hot 100 and was quickly added to playlists across various formats. Speaking with Billboard magazine, Monahan said: "We're not used to that kind of thing. Usually Train is a very slow build. 'Hey Soul Sister' and 'Drops Of Jupiter,' 'Calling All Angels,' everything took a long time to manifest into hit songs."
• Directed by Alan Ferguson, the video finds Monahan wooing a tour guide, played by Linda Taylor, at a Napa Valley winery. It debuted on Valentine's Day 2012.
  
  Train has a thing for wine: They launched the Save Me San Francisco Wine Company in 2011.
• The song featured on "The Package" episode of Hawaii Five-0, January 16, 2012.
• Train sang a kid-friendly version called "Five By" on Sesame Street in 2012 as part of a counting lesson with Elmo and Count von Count.
• Taylor Swift is a big fan of this song, especially one of its lyrics. Pat Monahan recalled to Radio.com how the "Look What You Made Me Do" singer ran up to him at a CMT awards show and told him, "I can't believe I didn't think of 'Oh I swear to you, I'll be there for you.'"
• Pat Monahan wrote the song during Train's 2011 tour of Australia.
• In 2026, Monahan told Off The Record he originally wrote the song "Drive By" for James Blunt, but Blunt's A&R guy didn't like it so he recorded it with his own band instead. The 2012 single became Train's third Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.