Songfacts®:

• While Brandi Carlile was writing her memoir, Broken Horses, she recalled a Sunday School lesson from her childhood that taught her to build her life on a strong foundation of faith via the analogy of building a house on a rock. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced her indoors, the grown-up singer contemplated what that sturdy foundation looked like to her as an adult with an uncertain future. She came up with "You And Me On The Rock," inspired by her wife, Catherine, and their two daughters.
  
  "When my life changed, when everything that I identify myself by went away, I was just kind of left with a question of, well, is what I've built my life on really a solid foundation?" she told Stereogum in 2021.
  
  "I turned to Catherine and the girls, and I wrote that song, and I realized that, yeah, even the most intensely self-identifying things can go away, but what my life is really built on, which is faith and my family, it's a rock, and it's solid. And then I just used some of the textures, some of the things that were happening in my day, from me being in my garden and her taking her space and going on her walks. She's got the most beautiful English accent that I just could listen to even when she's bitching at me. I could listen to it all day. And I just realized that they're my foundation and that anything can change, and that won't."
• As a budding artist, Carlile was always told she should have a backup plan in case her music career didn't pan out but she brushed off the warning. Even though she became famous, doubts started to creep in about what she'd do if her livelihood somehow went away. Then, the pandemic hit.
  
  "When the pandemic hit, it was like all of our nightmares just kind of ushered in," she recalled. "Nobody had a backup plan. We're artists. We don't have any money saved. We don't do that. It was scary because it makes you question whether or not you should've had a backup plan. Or what if the thing that makes me me goes away? Am I still me? Those were the questions that were in my mind. It's like I'm not going to get a round of applause for emptying the dishwasher. But I looked around, and then I saw that what made me me wasn't ever that."
• This features backing vocals from Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the indie-pop band Lucius. Carlile co-produced their 2022 album, Second Nature, and sang on a number of the tracks. Typically, she'd have her longtime collaborators, Tim and Phil Hanseroth (aka the Hanseroth twins), on vocal duties but "You And Me On The Rock" needed a feminine touch.
  
  "I just didn't want men's voices on it. It happens about once an album. So I did the harmonies. But it just sounded like me over and over again," she explained. She already knew she liked the way her voice blended with Wolfe's and Laessig's, so she tapped them for the track. "They sent back the harmonies, and I was doing backflips," she said. "I cranked them up loud."
• This was the second single from In These Silent Days, Carlile's seventh studio album. It peaked at #19 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
• Carlile performed this with Lucius on Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2022. She also resurrected her hit "The Story," from her 2007 album of the same name.