Songfacts®:

• "One Step Ahead" is an acoustic guitar-driven song where Jack Johnson sings of how communication and the way we get our information have been altered by social media. Though human nature hasn't changed, technology is so different nowadays. "It's getting to this dangerous place where the most extreme and sensationalized opinions have the potential to be heard by so many people," Johnson said.
• When it feels like it's all closing in
  All the lines we won't cross, we bend instead
  Never mind all the noise going through your head
  
  The lyric is about trying to breathe through the noise to get to a calmer place. Johnson says it's important to do this "when we're seeing a lot of friends lose trust and grow away from each other because they disagree over some issue or another."
• Johnson released "One Step Ahead" on April 8, 2022 as the lead single from Meet the Moonlight. He made the album with guitarist, producer and solo artist Blake Mills, noted for his work with Alabama Shakes, Lana Del Rey, Weezer, and Norah Jones. They recorded the record at Sound City and EastWest Studios in Los Angeles and at Johnson's Mango Tree studio in Hawaii.
• The 10 tracks on the album came out of conversations Johnson had with his wife, brothers or friends that got him ruminating. "There have been so many conversations about isolation, tribalism and empathy," he told UK newspaper The Sun, "both negative and positive emotions through this pandemic."
  
  The songs, he added, became "meditations on things that stick in my mind."
• "One Step Ahead" climbed to the top of Billboard's Adult Alternative Airplay Chart dated July 23, 2022, giving Johnson his 11th #1 on the survey.