Songfacts®:

• "Puppy And A Truck" is an endearing bop where Jenny Lewis navigates single life in her 40s and discovers contentment in a fresh chapter. As the song unfolds, Lewis finds positivity in life's simple treasures:
  
  Like a shot of good luck
  I got a puppy and a truck
• The puppy is Bobby Rhubarb, Lewis' cockapoo. The singer named her for a combination of her mom's brother Bobby, Bob Dylan, and rhubarb pie, the first pie she made doing lockdown. "My relationship with my mom was pretty challenging, so I was nervous when I got her," Lewis told The Sun. "But I am a great dog mom."
• "Puppy And A Truck" came out of a week-long online songwriting workshop hosted by the singer Beck. The challenge was to write one song every day for seven days, with guidelines from Beck. "The guidelines would be prompts like 'write a song with 1-4-5 chord progression,' 'write a song with only clichés,' or 'write in free form style,'" said Lewis.
• This was the first song Lewis submitted to Beck's online group. "Having the deadline in the workshop was crucial - I'd been thinking about it for a month, but I actually wrote it in 24 hours, and it was done," she told Apple Music. "I wrote every line with my puppy by my side."
• Released on November 3, 2021, "Puppy and a Truck" is the lead single from Lewis' fourth solo album, Joy'All. It is the former Rilo Kiley frontwoman's first album under her new label, Blue Note/Capitol Records, after she left Warner Bros. Records.
• Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile) produced Joy'All. Lewis met him while visiting the indie pop band Lucius at RCA Studio A in Nashville. She asked Cobb via text message to produce the album for her.
• Lewis recorded this song with Cobb's house band - Nate Smith (drums) and Brian Allen (bass) - live on the floor. Jess Wolfe came back to the studio to provide background vocals and then Greg Leisz added pedal steel back in LA.
• Lewis played the song in her set while supporting Harry Styles on the North American leg of his 2021 Love On Tour. "Every night my production manager would bring Bobby [Rhubarb] out, with little doggy headphones on," she recalled, "and she knew - she knew it was me up there."
• Jenny Lewis co-directed the video with Bobbi Rich. It incorporates footage from her tour dates as special guest of Harry Styles' tour.