Songfacts®:

• "This is just a commercial song," Jesse Valenzuela told Songfacts. "I wrote it because we needed something new and fast, needed some up-tempo in the set. I was just kind of writing, and it just kind of happened."
  
  "It opens every show, though. I like that song, it's got a little desert vibe in it," reveals the native Arizonan and Gin Blossoms founding member. "Because over the years I've driven between Phoenix and Los Angeles millions of times, and sort of memorized the drive. And I know where I'm gonna stop, and I know I'm gonna stop at Hadley's Fruit Farm and get a date shake and a turkey sandwich or something like that. And I know all the hills. It's like by the time I get to Quartzsite, I'm practically home." (Quartzsite is a small desert town off Interstate 10 about halfway between Phoenix and Los Angeles.)
  
  "And there's a big old gas station out there in the middle of nowhere. So I just started ruminating on the five- or six-hour drive, and just kind of wrote down the song when I got home."
• "Learning The Hard Way" was the first single from Major Lodge Victory, the first Gin Blossoms album since 1996. The group parted ways in 1997 and re-formed in 2002. No longer on a major label, the album was issued on an indie called Hybrid Recordings.