Songfacts®:

• This is the first single from American singer-songwriter Josh Groban's fifth album, Illuminations. The song was recorded live with Groban singing and playing piano, Matt Sweeney and Smokey Hormel on acoustic guitars, and veteran R&B icon Spooner Oldham on organ, with an orchestral arrangement by David Campbell added later.
• The song finds Groban making a heartfelt plea not to hide true love or one's true self. He wrote the cut with Semisonic lead singer Dan Wilson, who co-wrote with the Dixie Chicks some of their 2006 album Taking the Long Way, including the song "Not Ready To Make Nice." Wilson's biggest hit as a songwriter is Adele's "Someone Like You," which came a year after "Hidden Away" was released.
• Groban worked with veteran rock producer Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Linkin Park, Dixie Chicks) for Illuminations. He told Billboard magazine during a recent live video Q&A. "As far as what the fans are used to, I think that it's going be the best that they've ever heard from me. Rick's not a huge reverb fan, and he's not a big fan of big crashing drums. He wants the song and the singing to speak for itself, and I assume and I would hope that's what the fans want, too."
• Dan Wilson explained in an interview with American Songwriter that this was a true collaborative effort with Groban. Said Wilson: "That's one where we really started from the very… I think I just played the first two notes on the piano, the first bar, and said, 'Let's write something around this pattern that's really simple.' We built it up together every word, all the melodies."
• Groban explained the song's meaning to PopEater: "It's about people needing the kind of life shaken out of them. It's about people who are waiting for that release. It could be somebody coming home from work, a friend - but the song itself is about people who need to be woken up inside."
  
  Groban added that he can anticipate some questions from people in my life as to whether some of the Illuminations tracks, including this one, are about them. "I can definitely pinpoint one or two people - at least - in my life that I felt the song is for," he said. "It's also for myself as well. I think sometimes we sing songs that we'd like to hear ourselves and so in that way it can be very cathartic."