Songfacts®:

• "'Soundtrack," is a celebration of my wife," Matt Nathanson told Songfacts. The song recalls the first time they met, when they ditched their friends and went to her place, where they watched the sunrise the next morning. Music used to be Nathanson's whole life, but now it's merely the soundtrack to his life with her.
• Many of Nathanson's songs have been inspired in some way by his wife, but often with mixed emotions and levels of complexity. Most vividly, his 2007 album Some Mad Hope deals with a time when they nearly split up; songs like "Wedding Dress" and "Falling Apart" speak to what he calls their "near divorce."
  
  Nathanson says "Soundtrack" is "the only one I've ever written that just lives in the good," adding, "I find it hard to write like that, about joy. but if the last bunch of years have taught me anything, it's how immensely fortunate I am. and I wouldn't be anywhere near this life (we're talking DEEP DEEP woods) if it wasn't for my wife, and the love and empathy and patience she constantly shows me."
• Nathanson wrote this song with Nolan Sipe, whose credits include "Honey, I'm Good" by Andy Grammer and "Senorita" by Jake Owen. Along with the rest of the Boston Accent album, it was produced by Butch Walker, whose other clients include Weezer, Pink, and Katy Perry.