Songfacts®:

• Carlile wrote this song about a high school friend who committed suicide when they were both 16. At the time she was angry and confused over her friend's choice, but she has finally come to a place of forgiveness and is at peace about it.
  
  In a Songfacts interview with Brandi Carlile, she explained: "I was just in such a hyperactive phase in my life. But one of the ways that I moved past it was by blocking it out in terms like applying this sort of ridiculous rigid concept to it about selfishness. I just wrote it off and never talked about it or thought about it. And then like 10 years later this song came out of nowhere. You know, your feelings, it's just funny how they surface like that. And I wrote this song about reconciliation and forgiveness, and the understanding for the first time that he's what happened to him, not anybody else."
• "That Year" was the second single from Brandi Carlile's third album, Give Up the Ghost, following "Dreams." At the time, she had a modest pop hit under her belt with "The Story" from her previous album, but her stronghold was in the roots/Americana genre. She developed a much larger following several years later with songs like "The Joke" and "Broken Horses."
• Rick Rubin, whose other clients include Metallica and System of a Down, produced the Give Up The Ghost album. Rubin can do singer-songwriter as well - he's also worked with Sheryl Crow and Johnny Cash.
  
  When Carlile produced Tanya Tucker's album While I'm Livin' in 2019, she called Rubin for advice because Tucker was reluctant to do it. Rubin explained how he coaxed Johnny Cash to record a Nine Inch Nails song, which gave Carlile some perspective.
• This is one of four songs from the Give Up The Ghost album with drumming by Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, another band Rick Rubin has worked with. Carlile played piano and guitar on the track. The other credits are:
  
  Cello – Josh Neumann
  Electric Guitar – Tim Hanseroth
  Percussion – Lenny Castro
  Synthesizer – Jason Lader