Songfacts®:

• Joy Williams and John Paul White of The Civil Wars wrote this anthem for the lonely late one night in Birmingham, England. Williams explained: "Sometimes you come across somebody who thinks they are hiding their pain, but if we are all honest, nobody is very good at it."
  
  You're like a mirror, reflecting me
  Takes one to know one, so take it from me
  
  According to Williams, when she penned this song with White, they "decided to change the pronoun at the end of the song. We wanted to represent that we all experience loneliness in our lives."
• "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" is a phrase from the English burial service, used sometimes to denote total finality. It is based on the scriptural text "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." (Genesis 3:19)
• The song's music video uses lost footage from The Civil Wars' trip to Paris in March 2011. "When we re-discovered what we'd once thought to be lost footage from two years ago, these forgotten images from a trip to Paris strangely seemed fitting for the feel of 'Dust to Dust,'" said Williams. "For me, it's like stepping back in time."
• This is a track from The Civil Wars' self-titled second album, which went to #1 in America even though, for all intents and purposes, they were broken up by the time it was released. When they made a sudden rise in 2011 after releasing their first album, Joy Williams and John Paul White seemed to really enjoy each other's company, and their musical chemistry was astounding. They seemed compatible as a couple, but were married to other people. In 2012, it all fell apart when they started sessions for the album and then headed out on tour. They ended up calling off the tour midway through and completing the album under discord. When it was issued in August 2013 it went to #1 but White wouldn't promote it. They never again performed together and made their breakup official the following year.