Songfacts®:

• "Livin' For The Ones" is a contemplative ballad inspired by losses during the pandemic. It's a pragmatic lyric where Bonnie Raitt urges us to honor our lost friends and loved ones by making our own lives count. "Life as we know it has been upended in this pandemic," she told Uncut magazine. "And the lyrics spilled out within a short period, about the very real way I'm dealing with what we're going through."
  
  "Since the loss of my brother in 2009 and especially after losing so many too soon in the last couple of years, whenever I fall into a pit of complaining I think about the lives they won't get to live and I yank myself out of it," Raitt continued. "I could have written something more somber, but putting powerful emotions into songs like this is the best remedy I know."
• Raitt wrote the sly strut with her long serving guitarist George Marinelli. The track also features her longtime rhythm section of drummer Ricky Fataar and bassist James "Hutch" Hutchinson.
• Raitt recorded "Livin' For The Ones" for her 18th studio album, Just Like That.... Working alongside engineer Ryan Freeland, she produced the record herself.