Songfacts®:

• Teddy Grossman wrote this laidback track for his debut studio album, Soon Come. The tune expresses his gratitude in finding his groove in the Los Angeles music scene and his commitment to honing his craft. Released in 2020, it was the first single from the album, which dropped in 2022.
• The project started in earnest in the summer of 2019 when Grossman and Ryan Pollie, his high school buddy turned producer, wanted to turn their sporadic collaborations into something more. "By that summer, it was like, I'm loving the tones we're getting, there's a real connective tissue and vibe with all these songs, no matter how different they are. Let's go in hard and make a whole record," Grossman told the Songfacts Podcast in 2022.
  
  "We were in that elevated, inspired state, like a muse living over your roof. We'd be at the studio all day and then I'd come home and have this immense sense of gratitude and joy, because there'd always been this little voice of unfulfillment. Then I finally got to LA and was finding my lane and making this record, and this was the headspace where 'What I Owe' came out. It was essentially about the gratitude for being here and the patience of the muse or whoever that may be, but also an obligation and a commitment to service, to work hard and come in every day with a pot of coffee and chase down more songs."
• Grossman said the album title refers to "the belief in this inevitability of whatever it is that you want to achieve or do in life."
• In the slice-of-life music video, directed by Tanner Rittenhouse, we watch Grossman as he goes about his day. He wakes up, prepares his coffee and brushes his teeth before heading outdoors to play some basketball and go for a scenic walk. Eventually, he ends up performing at the Highland Park Folk Festival and hanging out at a bonfire with his friends (including actress Hayley Autry).