Songfacts®:

• "Casseroles" is a nuanced meditation on grief and the strange etiquette that surrounds it - specifically, the unspoken rule that one must eventually stop mourning and start eating again. Hailey Whitters contemplates the moment when the flood of well-meaning visitors slows to a trickle, the sympathy casseroles stop arriving, and you're left alone with a fridge full of rapidly expiring lasagnas and the uneasy sense that everyone else has moved on.
• The somber ballad, written by Hillary Lindsey, Tom Douglas, and James Slater, struck Whitters with particular force. Thirteen years before its release, she lost her brother suddenly, and while her home was filled with food, she found herself too grief-stricken to eat.
  
  "Remembering that moment was what made this song hit so heavy for me," the Iowa-born singer said. "What happens when the casseroles stop coming and everyone has moved on, but it feels like you never will? As heavy and somber as the lyric and melody is, I also think there's hope in the message and pray that it lands between ears that need to hear it."
• The production, handled by Whitters' husband, Jake Gear, leans into the song's quiet devastation. The musicians are:
  
  Logan Matheny: percussion.
  Jerry Roe: drums.
  Russ Pahl: pedal steel guitar.
  Tony Lucido: bass.
  Bryan Sutton: acoustic guitar.
  Justin Moses: dobro, mandolin.
  Stuart Duncan: fiddle.
  Jeff Taylor: accordion, whistle, pipe.
  Hillary Lindsey: background vocals