Songfacts®:

• The Black Keys are no strangers to cranking out albums at their Nashville digs, Easy Eye Studios. Dan Auerbach, the band's frontman, thrives in that environment, constantly churning out new music and jamming with whoever walks through the door. But for their 2024 album Ohio Players, there was a shift. While Danger Mouse has been their go-to collaborator in the past, this time they decided to open their Rolodex and dial up some long-desired connections.
  
  High on the list was Beck. After years of touring together and endless "we should do something" conversations, the timing worked out perfectly.
  
  "He happened to be in Nashville," Auerbach's bandmate Pat Carney spilled to Uncut magazine, "so he came by Easy Eye for a couple days and we knocked out a few songs, one of them being their first song on the record, 'This Is Nowhere.'"
• The song kicks off with a bassline that's pure grime, blooming into a full-on singalong anthem about ditching the soul-sucking routine. Auerbach sings of heading for "nowhere," a place that represents freedom from the drudgery of daily life.
  
  "That set the album in motion," Auerbach told UK newspaper The Sun. "It was music discovery, interaction and collaboration - everything that we've been into recently."
• Beck ended up co-writing seven of the 14 tracks on Ohio Players. "We've always gotten along with Beck," said Auerbach. "We're studio rats and so is he. We're there to serve the songs. That's why we wrote so many with him and why it felt like second nature."
• The Black Keys produced "This Is Nowhere" themselves and laid down tambourine, bass, guitar, Moog, drums, and handclaps. The other musicians are:
  
  Sam Bacco: tambourine, cymbals, shaker, congas, cowbell
  Mike Rojas: Mellotron, piano, Moog
  Ray Jacildo: piano, Hammond B3
  Tom Bukovac: guitar
  Andrew Gabbard: backing vocals
  Beck: backing vocals