Songfacts®:

• Alicia Keys wrote this R&B prayer with her then-boyfriend and songwriting partner Kerry Brothers Jr. (aka Krucial) for her debut album, Songs In A Minor. In the lyrics, she finds encouragement to keep working hard at achieving her dreams despite feeling like they're slipping away.
  
  At the time she wrote the song, she was still a teenager trying to make authentic music for a label that didn't appreciate it (Columbia Records). She and Brothers were living at a small apartment in Harlem that they'd outfitted as a recording space, but "Troubles" began on her mother's piano as she played her emotions out on the keys. Back at home, her fervent morning prayers to God about her situation inspired the lyrics, which in turn inspired the chords that fit the mood of her words.
  
  "I remember coming up with those chords," she said in a 2022 Library of Congress interview. "The song concept was like, the verses were me explaining my troubles. The choruses were like, a higher being or God talking to me, like saying, 'It's going to work out. Just let it go.' That was very therapeutic for me. Everything that I spoke about, even the conversation I had at the beginning, where I was talking about shadows on my wall, it was, literally, when I woke in the morning these shadows would be on the wall. It felt like a deep hole that I was trying to describe."
• To capture the bustling vibe of New York City, Keys and Brothers walked the streets of Harlem with a DAT machine to record the cacophony of voices, sirens, traffic, and other city noises to incorporate into the background of the recording midway through the song. One bystander can be heard yelling, "Yeah, I'm gonna take it nice and slow!"
• This samples a hook from Barry White's 1973 hit "I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby."
• Keys left Columbia Records and signed with veteran producer Clive Davis' new label, J Records, where she found the creative freedom she was looking for. Davis also proved to be a shrewd promoter and got Keys' voice out to as many ears as possible by having her sing for top radio promoters and perform on The Tonight Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show ahead of the album's release.
• Keys also embarked on her first headlining concert tour to promote the album, performing throughout North America and the UK. She also hit the road with R&B singer Maxwell in late 2001 for a string of shows throughout the US. (A decade later, the pair reunited for the duet "Fire We Make" for Keys' Girl On Fire album.)