Songfacts®:

• Dave Matthews told Billboard magazine about this track: "It's a really dark song. To me, it's about the end of the world. The chorus itself:
  
  Wake up sleepy head, I think the sun's a little brighter today
  Smile and watch the icicles melt away
  And see the waters rising. Summer's here to stay and all the summer dreams will last forever
  Let's go down to the shore and kick off our shoes and dive in the empty ocean
  
  It's really about, whether you believe it or not, the possible end of everything. I did it in this way of trying to disguise it as an 'everything's going to be fine' kind of song. It's a sneaky song.
  
  I hope as people listen to it they'll go 'wait a minute, it's not happy, what the hell's going on here?' When you hear what the lyrics are actually talking about, it becomes really sad. But it's got that happy feeling to it, which makes it become more of an ache, the ache that comes with happiness in it when you think of all the beautiful things in our lives. And the idea of all that going away doesn't take away from the fact that there are all these beautiful things in our lives. [It is] the sweetness that comes with a heavy does of sobering bitterness."
• Dave Matthews played lead guitar on this track. He told Relix magazine: "Unlike the solo in 'Funny the Way it Is,' this one I sort of sat down and put together with Rob [Cavallo, the producer], so that's different. It's a guitar 'piece.' I guess it's a solo."
• Matthews told Relix about drummer Carter Beauford's contribution to this track: "Carter approached the song with such just this incredible urgency, and there's such an aggressive drum track. If you were just to hear the drum track by itself, you could not believe the song that it supports. It's almost a ballad, but he's just attacking the drums the whole time. And that's really how he played the whole record."