Songfacts®:

• "Never Gonna Say Goodbye" was written by Taylor Goldsmith for his fiancée Mandy Moore. The Dawes frontman and the star of NBC family TV drama This Is Us first fell for each other on FaceTime after Moore enthused about Goldsmith's band on Instagram.
• Mandy Moore detailed the story behind this tender love song on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
  
  "About a year ago, I had this weird freak accident where I hit my eye on the handle of the shower," she explained. "I was home by myself and my eye split open and there was blood everywhere and he was on tour, and he felt so bad. And he very very sweetly, which says a lot about him, wrote me this song and sent it to me, as like a way of making me feel better because he couldn't be there to help me get to the doctor and stuff."
  
  "I remember hearing it, and I was like, 'This has to go on the album," Moore added. "And he was like, 'No, no. That's my language to you. I don't know if I feel comfortable putting it out there.' … I was like, 'No, no. People should hear that song.' And it's on their record."
• Mandy Moore was married to singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, prior to her relationship with Taylor Goldsmith. She served as muse to several of his songs such as the "I Love You But I Don't Know What to Say" lyric "When I met you the clouds inside me parted." Later, Adams' 2017 album Prisoner was born out of his pain, following their divorce.
• Goldsmith also wondered if Dawes fans would embrace such a vulnerable tune, which seemed out of place in 2018, but producer Jonathan Wilson convinced him it was essential for the album. "I was talking to Jonathan about it, and I was like, 'Is this song a little too…much?'" Goldsmith recalled in a 2018 interview with The Bluegrass Situation.
  
  "I feel like we would all love it if Willie Nelson recorded it in 1973 maybe, but in 2018 is that acceptable now? And Jonathan was like, 'That's exactly why I like this song so much. That's exactly why this should be on the record, because people don't have the guts to go to this more vulnerable and intimate and earnest place.' And so that's something that I used to be scared of because I wanted to be this sort of obtuse artist that was impenetrable because that's what I've always admired in songwriters, but the reality is I'm never gonna be that. The more I embrace what comes out naturally, the better it all feels."