“It was a story about a breakup I was going through, and that situation where it’s gotten into your head too much. Partially because somebody else is telling you that you’re only hearing what you want to, and that puts you in a little bit of a tailspin. It puts me in a little bit of a tailspin, because you can’t figure out what’s actually real, are you only seeing things through your own eyes? Are you actually seeing things the way that they really are, or are you making things up? And at what point do you know whether you’re seeing things the way that they really are? The lines: “so I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song:” was not about a specific song, that was when you hear somebody telling your exact story. It’s funny, because it wasn’t until later, after a couple of major breakups, that I realized when you’re depressed and you’re going through these breakups, the breakup was supposed to happen. If you’re going through difficult times, it’s hilarious how you turn on the radio and even the most cliché things perfectly capture how you’re feeling.”Lisa Loeb (277)

“”I Do” is a song that people often tell me they relate to as a relationship song, but it was written like a number of other songs I’ve heard have been written: about the record company asking for more music. When I felt like my record was done, they wanted to hear a single. And the song was, “You don’t hear it, but I do. When I’m done with thinking, then I’m done with you.” It’s like, you know what? I’m fed up with you. I was fed up with the record company. “When I’m done with crying, then I’m done with you.” And I was using some really straightforward lyrics, like “When I’m done with crying,” I wasn’t literally crying over the record company. But it just seemed really easy to sing, and I was trying to write something that was not so wordy, and not so poetic. Something that was really straightforward that people could understand when they heard it immediately. “Everybody feels this way sometime,” da da da da da, “I do. You don’t hear it, but I do.” Literally, the record company said they didn’t hear a single. And it was so annoying, because they had already told me they did, and then here they were coming back saying that they didn’t. I guess a relationship with a record company is somewhat of a relationship, although you put up with things with a record company that you would never put up with in a relationship. That’s what that song started as, but I’m sure I probably took things from real relationship issues.”Lisa Loeb (277)

“That was probably around college. I think it was in the middle of a separation from a guy, or maybe after a breakup. It was this feeling where I knew we should be broken up, but it kind of runs the gamut of all the feelings that you have when you go through a breakup, even if you instigate the breakup. You’re wondering if they’re completely still obsessed with you, like: do you eat, sleep, and breathe me? Like when you’re broken up, and still at every moment you’re thinking about this other person, and it’s just so upsetting and it drives you crazy. But then it goes through my own thought process, where I think back, I guess in an abstract and a little bit of a poetic way about what the relationship used to be. And then by the time you get to the chorus, “I don’t know, and I don’t care if I ever see you again,” you go through all those feelings – at least I do. My feelings are never completely 100% straightforward, and if they are, they go through many different phases, where I look at things from a lot of different angles.”Lisa Loeb (277)

“”Jake” is about a relationship where you feel like you’re in a hole. And I actually expressed that through metaphors, but it sounds very literal. You know, I’m going as far as I can go away from here, away from you, Jake, and the hole you sucked me into. To me that seems like a direct through line. And it almost seems like a short story, because it starts, and when it’s over, it’s like you turn the page and you’re done. The lyrics end and you turn the page, and it’s over. But there’s not a real Jake. No.”Lisa Loeb (277)

“That was one that I wrote in Miles Copeland’s castle in France with two other writers. And the idea in that case was instigated by one of the men, who’s a writer from Nashville. He had somebody in his life who had anorexia, and he wanted to write a song about that. I thought that was a great topic, food disorders and eating issues, and depressed teenagers are a near and dear topic to me.”Lisa Loeb (277)