Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Jon Foreman explained to New Release Tuesday how musically this song was influenced by the music he played in his school years: "I'm pretty sure that I wrote this one in an elevator. Tim (Foreman, bass) says that the seed of it was written by the time the elevator ride was over. I don't remember that, I just wanted to have a song on the record (and live) that captured a reinterpretation of the blues. From the moment I started playing guitar I was hooked on Led Zeppelin, BB King, and Hendrix. Wes Montgomery came later. I wanted to have a simple throbbing, pulsing song on the record that epitomized the songs I played in Jr. High."
• Foreman told NewReleaseTuesday: "The concept of this song is fairly simple. I am trapped by myself. I am a man who is bounded by his own lusts and vices, yearning to be free of these hindrances. We are enslaved to our passing desires that are often more swayed by our environment than our own volition. Most of what we call our "choices" are simply reactions. Free thought is incredibly rare. Who can know the darkest parts within himself? This unspoken and nameless prison is the bane of the 'free' world, the hole in the neighborhood. We are in the chains of debt, the chains of consumption, enslaved by our lusts, our fears, and our past. The truth will set you free but it's only slightly less scary than hell and a whole lot harder to get there. There is no outer freedom until we have chosen to be free inside.Lyrically I feel like this song is the brother of 'Mess of Me.' Yearning for a life beyond what I have. Hoping for freedom. Still yearning to get there. 'I had a dream that my chains were broken... broken open.' I'm still running hard for this goal."