Songfacts®:

• This is a track from That Girl, the debut solo album from Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles. The LP was recorded with renowned producer Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Aerosmith, Kanye West) at his legendary Shangri-La Studio in Malibu. They tracked the cuts live in the studio,with a crack band of session pros, including virtuoso guitarists Smokey Hormel (who's played with Beck and Tom Waits) and Matt Sweeney (collaborator with Cat Power, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and his own band Chavez) "From the beginning we were tracking everything I was singing because those are the moments that if you catch them, they can be super special," Nettles told Billboard magazine of the old school approach. "But, if you miss them thinking it's just going to be a scratch take, that would be the take you wish you had. You can hear the human elements, and that's what I wanted."
  
  "On 'This Angel,' you can hear Matt and Smokey, the guitarists that are playing on the track, you can hear their chairs squeak, and you can also hear one of their intakes of breath," added Nettles. "That to me is raw human emotion, and it says this is real people playing real instruments. That feels so much more organic to me. I'm so proud of how it turned out."