Songfacts®:

• Frontman Caleb Followill explained the song's meaning to The Sun: "While you'd expect the track 'Family Tree' to be about family, it's a song I wrote about a lot of stereotypes about the South," he said. "It's got humor in there, I hope. Even with my personal stuff I try to have fun – the hook of the chorus to that song is a joke."
• The hip-shaking boogie shuffle has a louder, looser feel than most of the tracks on Kings of Leon's previous Only By The Night and Come Around Sundown sets. Drummer Nathan Followill told Rolling Stone: "'Family Tree' is a song that sounds like we picked up our instruments and went with a groove, and that's pretty much exactly how it happened. That song embodies the headspace we had going into that record."
• Lead guitarist Matthew Followill told Billboard magazine that this is a weird song for him to play. He explained: "It's so rhythm heavy that there's not a lot of space for anything else, everything's covered. There's nothing I can do that sounds cool, it sounds cool just being like it is, with just the bass and the drums it sounds great. So I didn't write any big parts for that, a lot of it is kind of noodling."