Songfacts®:

• Pete Droge wrote this song for a 2002 independent film he scored called Tattoo: A love Story. It's an instrumental motif in the film but turns into a song in the end. Droge released the song on his 2006 album Under The Waves.
• Droge wrote "Going Whichever Way the Wind Blows" with his longtime musical and romantic partner, Elaine Summers. As he working out the song, she was cooking in the kitchen. He was working out the melody using nonsense words and syllables, planning to write real lyrics later. At one point in his mumblings, Summers thought she heard him sing the phrase "going whichever way the wind blows." She thought it was a great theme for the song, and told Pete, who didn't recall singing those words but liked them and used them as the title.
• The song is about surrendering to fate, letting live take you where it will. This works if you can stay in the moment and enjoy the journey. It's a message that informs Droge's life and work. Speaking with Songfacts about writing with Summers, he said: "It's always a little different, and that's what we love about songwriting. Sometimes there's a core idea right away. Other times, it reveals itself as we work."
• The song got a lot of attention when it was used in a 2008 commercial for the Toyota Sequoia where a family uses it for car camping. It's a rare commercial with no dialogue - just the song and some ambient sounds. The song also appears in a 2007 episode of the show Men In Trees and a 2013 episode of Legit.