Songfacts®:

• With a soft, ephemeral feel and a female vocal, "Picture This" sounds more like a Lana Del Rey than something from the Beastie Boys.
  
  The singer is Brooke Williams, a friend of Beastie Boy Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) who also wrote the lyric. Ad-Rock came up with the track on his own at the group's studio, which they called The Dungeon. He didn't have a lyric for the song, so when Williams came by the studio he asked her to write one and sing on it. She came up with a dreamy story about watching from a windowsill and pondering life's mysteries.
• In the Beastie Boys Book, Ad-Rock writes: "'Picture This' really reminds me of a beautiful summer's day looking out of a half-open window at the grimy glory that is NYC."
• Brooke Williams' vocals were processed through a portable Fender reverb box she often used. The Beastie Boys often put various effects on their vocals, so this wasn't out of place for them.