Songfacts®:

• The Meat Puppets' Too High to Die album was released in the wake of the Kirkwood brothers' appearance on Nirvana's classic MTV Unplugged special, when they got to accompany the Seattle band as they covered three classic Meat Puppets II numbers. Rock radio picked up on this melodic rocker and it became the Puppets' biggest ever hit. The song was their only entry on the US Hot 100.
• The song started out as a slower, bluesier number, inspired by The King of Rock 'N' Roll's spiritual tunes. Lead singer and principal songwriter Curt Kirkwood explained to us: "I always liked Elvis' gospel albums, and I like gospel in general. Those are the Elvis albums I grew up on, because my grandmother had them. Kept some of the first stuff. So I thought it would be cool to write a gospel, or try to. So that's what that was. It wasn't really supposed to be religious, like gospel, but it was real slow. And I pretty much started out with the organ, the demo was based mostly around the organ. And it was a lot slower. It was hymnal slow. "
• The album title is a parody of The Ramones' 1984 album Too Tough to Die.