Songfacts®:

• This was written by Jayhawks guitarist and vocalist Gary Louris, who was the band's principal songwriter at the time. He told us it was inspired by a Canadian advert, "for a bank about trying to save it for a rainy day. I thought, 'Hey, maybe they'll use our song and give us some money and use it as their little thing.'"
• The lyrics are "about two or three people kind of mixed all together." Louris told us he couldn't "mention one of them, because she's well known. But my friend Marina, who was a photographer, was somebody that we had kind of a off time relationship. When she was available, I wasn't, when I was available, she wasn't, or didn't want to be."
  
  "And so it's a little bit of a poke in the eye for her," he continued. "But as far as like, 'Don't be so sad.' But it was definitely artistic license and a mixture of two or three different people mixed together. It's a very enduring song for people. Because when I play it, people sing the 'So sad,' it's really a beautiful thing, because people love it."
• Louris told us that he believes this to be one of "the two perfect pop songs" he's written, along with the Tomorrow The Green Grass track, "Blue." He explained: "I love to play it because it's got what I call the 'money chords.' They're the big chords that rise up to the big chords. It's not something you can sit in with a back up band and say, 'Okay, follow me.' It's big chords. It's not a blues song, it's not a country song. It's got too many chords. But it's a perfect little pop song as far as I'm concerned."