Songfacts®:

• This cut about ocean pollution was the first song written by Jack Johnson for All The Light Above It Too. The track was penned during the filming of the movie The Smog of the Sea, an in-depth look at how pollution is affecting sea creatures. It started off as a small jam session between Johnson with the crew, and it ended up being featured in the film. Johnson recalled to HMV.com:
  
  "I did a track for Smog Of The Sea and I spent a lot of time with scientists, finding out about how so much plastic ends up in the ocean that it degrades and degrades into such tiny pieces that it becomes fish food and then ends up in our food system. That stayed with me and that gave me the first song for the album. The documentary was the beginning of the album."
• The pointed lyrics contrast with the soothing instrumentation. "The struggle with a song like ["Fragments"] is trying to keep it from sounding like a public service announcement," Johnson told Rolling Stone. "By the end, I felt like the lyrics touched more on the psychology of why something like this might happen and where we are in history as humans, so it wasn't too literal."