Songfacts®:

• "Shine a Little Light" is the opening track of Let's Rock, an album that represented a deliberate return by Black Keys to focus on guitar. This song, built around a monster riff, is a case in point. Dan Auerbach told Uncut magazine they didn't go into the studio heavily prepared.
  
  "We wrote them all on the spot. I didn't bring anything in with me. I didn't want to overthink it I wanted it to feel spontaneous I wanted to be able to like record something not dissimilar to Louie Louie and be perfectly happy with it. I was looking for The Troggs."
• Lyrically, this song is a meditation on death and grieving for a lost loved one. The subject matter links in with the album title, which was inspired by a Tennessee news story about the execution of double killer Edmund Zagorski. When guards asked Zagorski if he had any last words, he replied, "Let's rock."
  
  Auerbach explained to Rolling Stone that he read the account while the band was recording the album. "Nothing makes you think more about life than death," he quipped.