Songfacts®:

• LP calls this a "lonely cowboy song," with the lyrics a metaphor for a rapidly changing world. In a promotional interview with Citibank, she explained: "I had been thinking about how we're on a runaway train of technology, going into the wild, wild west of technology. It seems like every year it gets a little bit faster. We don't really know what we've done with this."
• LP wrote the song on a ukulele, which she plays on the track. She finds the instrument conducive to creativity.
• In 2011, "Into The Wild" soundtracked a Citibank commercial where rock climber Katie Brown stands atop a peak at the Ancient Arts rock formation in Utah. The spot is called "Somebody Left The Gate Open," which is the line from the song used in the ad.
  
  The commercial proved very popular and gave the song a lot of exposure.
• Into The Wild is the name of a 1996 book by Jon Krakauer that was made into a movie in 2007. When LP started writing the song, she was concerned about the ubiquity of the title, but realized there were no popular songs that used it.
• LP is the New York-based singer-songwriter Laura Pergolizzi. After releasing two independent albums, she landed a record deal with Island/Def Jam in 2006, but it didn't pan out. One of her songs, "Love Will Keep You Up All Night," found its way to the Backstreet Boys, who recorded it in 2007. This got her started writing songs for other artists, and over the next few years he placed songs with Christina Aguilera ("Beautiful People"), Rihanna ("Cheers (Drink To That)") and Luciana ("I'm Still Hot"). She got another solo deal in 2011, this time with Warner Bros. Records, which released Into The Wild that year as her first single on the label. But her album took a painfully long time to complete, dampening the momentum she gathered from the single. By the time it was released in 2014, many of her supporters at Warner were gone, and it didn't get much promotion. When it flopped, LP was devastated, but pushed forward, writing a set of very personal, emotional songs that she recorded for a new label, Vagrant Records. "Lost on You," released in 2015, became a huge international hit and a streaming sensation, pulling counts in the hundreds of millions on most services, and tipping a billion views on YouTube. Moving forward, she still wrote some songs for other artists, but mostly focused on her own material.
• LP wrote this song with PJ Bianco, known for his work with The Jonas Brothers. He also produced the track.
• LP does a lot of whistling on "Into The Wild," which came about by accident. "I was recording the song, and had just laid down the ukulele," she told 94.7 Fresh FM. "I was sitting behind the producer and engineer playing along and whistling that, and subconsciously I didn't even know what I was whistling. They were like, 'What is that? Go put it in there."
  
  She incorporated whistling into her repertoire, including it on many more songs.
• The music video, directed by Shane Drake, stars Haley Bennett and Brittany Snow as girls on the lam who rob a convenience store with a water pistol. It was shot at Four Aces Movie Ranch in Palmdale, California.