Songfacts®:

• In this song, Cole Gallagher takes a walk in the shoes of an immigrant crossing the United States border from Mexico. The title, "Chatting Through Steel," doesn't show up in the lyric but implies that the family has been separated at the border. The song looks at the hardships and impossible choices these immigrants face.
• David Hidalgo of Los Lobos sings with Gallagher on this track and also plays the accordion. After Gallagher wrote the song, he could imagine Hidalgo's vocal, and was thrilled when he was able to get him.
  
  "He came to the studio with a guitar and an accordion, and his only request was a Jack Daniel's and a Coke to warm up his voice," Gallagher said. "I'm so honored that he's on my record."
• "Chatting Through Steel" was Gallagher's first single. He made a name for himself playing in the Pasadena, California area before heading to Nashville, where he recorded the song with producer Vance Powell. The single was released in 2021 and was included on Gallagher's EP The Confluence in 2023.
• Along with Gallagher and Hidalgo, these musicians plays on the track:
  
  Chad Gamble - drums
  Sadler Vaden - guitar
  Barry Billings - guitar
  Jon Eldridge - keyboards
  Jimbo Hart - bass
  
  Hart, Vaden and Gamble are all members of Jason Isbell's backup band, The 400 Unit, but Gallagher didn't know much about them at the time. "I was just a kid," he said on the Songfacts Podcast. "I knew who Sturgill Simpson was and some other guys in that vein of music like Nathaniel Rateliff."
  
  "I knew of Pink Floyd, I knew of the CCR, big names in rock and roll," he added. "Any country bone I had came from like Johnny Cash, and that was it, that was my understanding of country music beyond like CCR - a bunch of dudes from, Lodi, California. And Lynrd Skynrd, The Rolling Stones."