Songfacts®:

• Here, Eddie Vedder laments a lost loved one. His anguish is palpable as he pronounces, "there's no previous reference for this level of pain."
• So, what fallen "brother" is Eddie grieving? Vedder was a close friend of the late Soundgarden and Audioslave vocalist Chris Cornell, who committed suicide in 2017 at age 52. The Pearl Jam frontman also lost his own half-brother, Chris Mueller, in a climbing accident in 2016.
  
  During his concert in Newark, New Jersey, on February 6, 2022, Vedder told the crowd he wrote the song about a few people he knew who died. One of them is a father named Jeremy Richman who lost his daughter, Avielle, in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. According to Vedder, he tried to be positive about his loss, speaking at various seminars and conferences. They became close, then Vedder got news that Richman had died of an apparent suicide.
  
  "I wouldn't dare to question his motives, because after something as horrific as that happened to you... I wish I could've done more to save him," Vedder said. "I wish he would've known that I was on the other side ever-so-close just days away. I would never judge what he was going through because it must've been the worst thing a human could ever go through."
• Vedder recorded the song for the Earthling album with a band comprising:
  
  Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith
  Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer
  Producer and musician Andrew Watt (guitar)
  Session musician Chris Chaney (bass)
• Vedder wrote the song with Watt, Klinghoffer, and Smith, with Watt also serving as producer.