Songfacts®:

• This song finds Brandi Carlile pleading with someone close to her for a reconciliation following an argument. The singer got angry and took it out on this other person, leaving them upset. But in the chorus Carlile reveals she doesn't regret their heated exchange because she'd kept quiet for far too long. For her, the release of her pent-up emotions came "right on time."
• Brandi Carlile wrote the song with her longtime co-conspirators Tim and Phil Hanseroth in the barn on her Washington State property during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hanseroth twins live on neighboring properties and they and their families quarantined together during the lockdown.
• Carlile released the song on July 23, 2021 as the lead single from In These Silent Days. She recorded the 10-track album with producers Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings at RCA Studio A in Nashville.
• Just hours after releasing "Right on Time," Brandi Carlile gave the song its live debut when she performed it on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
• Actress Courteney Cox, best known for playing Monica on Friends, directed the video. The clip starts with Carlile onstage at the end of a show. As she exits backstage, the singer finds herself separated by glass from other people going about their lives.
• Carlile and Cox are good pals. Their friendship started in early 2020 when the singer came across an Instagram video of Cox playing the "The Joke" on the piano. Carlile was impressed with Cox' cover of her song, so she messaged her. They met up, became friends, and when the actress pitched Carlile a concept for the "Right On Time" music video the songstress was captivated.
  
  "I really feel seen by Courteney," said Carlile to Entertainment Weekly. "I don't feel like 'Brandi Carlile' with her, I feel like Brandi. That's why the video spoke to me. I knew she was just seeing something about who I am and why I wrote that song that I didn't expect anyone to see."
• This is the first time that Courteney Cox directed a video, but her history with the form dates back to 1984 when the then-unknown actress danced on stage with Bruce Springsteen in his "Dancing In The Dark" visual.
• Brandi Carlile performed the song on the October 23, 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live. She also played her In These Silent Days track "Broken Horses" on the show.
• Carlile pulled off a memorable performance of "Right On Time" at the Grammy Awards in 2022, where she was introduced by her idol, Joni Mitchell, who called Brandi "an extraordinary artist and beautiful human being, a stunning, brave and truthful voice." The song was nominated for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Pop Solo Performance, but didn't win in any category.
• On her previous album, By The Way, I Forgive You, it took Carlile a while to find her groove in the studio without the benefit of a live audience. By the time she found it on "The Joke," the project was already done, so it was important to her to tap into that same energy with "Right On Time."
  
  "It was like, lights out, we go home after 'The Joke.' And I was like, 'Sh-t. Man, I just got there,'" she told Stereogum in 2021. "All the years went by, and the big things happened with 'The Joke,' but I always knew in the back of my mind that I had to stop that process in the middle. So when I wrote 'Right On Time,' I knew I was starting where 'The Joke' left me off, and I wanted to start the album that way because that's what felt true to me."
• This was used on the TV series This Is Us in the 2022 episode "One Giant Leap."