Songfacts®:

• Dawes leader Taylor Goldsmith went through a Joan Didion phase before he started composing the band's third studio album, devouring several of the American author's books. The frontman found the record's title, 'Stories Don't End' whilst reading the legendary writer's 1984 Vietnam War-set novel Democracy.
• Goldsmith told Songfacts that this was an unusual song for him in terms of songwriting. "I came upon the title first and worked backwards," he explained in the 2024 interview. "That one felt a little more guided by the emotion than some more specific songs of mine. I don't do that as well now, so I'm grateful to have that song in the catalog. I also like the chords in that one a lot. It adds a dimension to the lyric that I don't get out of my songs too often."
• With their third album, Dawes wanted to play up the contemporary aspects of their sound that may have been lost on listeners of their first two albums.
  
  "There have always been people that have said, 'It's very clear that you guys are influenced by bands of another time,' which we are and proudly so," Goldsmith explained in a behind-the-scenes video. "But I feel like whereas the contemporary qualities of those [first] two records may have been a little hard to recognize for some people, I feel like with this third record, it's very exciting that it's clearly the same band with the same players and the same sensibilities but making a record that that impression won't be given anymore. It will be very clear that it was a record that was made in 2012."
• Dawes released a remixed and remastered version of Stories Don't End in celebration of the album's 10th anniversary in 2023. That same year, their lineup was shaken up when longtime members Wylie Gelber (bass) and Lee Pardini (piano) left the band.