Songfacts®:

• This is the title track from the fourth studio album by the San Diego-based singer-songwriter Greg Laswell. He told AntiMusic that the song was penned after a failed relationship. Said Laswell: "I wrote 'Take a Bow' to myself. I know, right? How ridiculous. I told myself I'd never admit that but what the hell, in the spirit of being singled out, there it is: I wrote this song to my flipping self. I've been heartbroken twice in my whole life... This song was written right after my second one failed. To be perfectly frank, I always knew that second one wasn't going to work, but that did not keep me from running full-throttle at it. I can now admit that I wasn't in love with the person the song concerns as much as I was in love with the chance of being in love again.
  The chorus, 'try and stay out of your head, I have seen you invent the damnedest things there,' is a self-induced challenge I suppose. The truth is people are going to do what they are going to do. They are going to change their step in the middle of the dance sometimes, and probably right when you are getting the hang of it. You can't go through life absorbing the blame. I, on the other hand, do it all the time. At the high risk of sounding self-congratulatory, I allow myself to be proud in this song. I like that I tried again. I like that I allowed myself into a place where I could get hurt again. I played my heart out. It's not really a sad song with that skin on it. Blah, blah, blah.... how nauseating. I hope you like it and it finds a place in your own story somehow."