Songfacts®:

• All these questions they're for real
  Like who would you live for?
  Who would you die for?
  And would you ever kill?
  
  This song finds Tyler Joseph pondering the "ride of life" with thoughts of life, death, friends and what it all means in the end. He contemplates difficult philosophical questions, such as figuring out who he would live or die for. Joseph concludes by admitting that he's overthinking life and starts crying out for help.
• The song was released as the fifth single from Blurryface. The album is named after a character the band created and Joseph wears black paint on his hands and neck when performing, to represent the figure. He explained to Billboard magazine: "Blurryface is this character that I came up with that represents a certain level of insecurity. These symbols and having a narrative give people a reason to want to take in the whole album - not just one song."
• The island-flavored production was supplied by Ricky Reed (Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty," Pitbull's "Fireball"). Eight of the songs on Blurryface, are Reed productions, including the band's first crossover hit, "Fairly Local."
  
  This was the first song Reed worked on. He recalled to Billboard magazine: "They flew me out to Columbus, Ohio where they're from. I remember having heard the song 'Ride' just being like enamored with it, having heard the demo, and said, 'That's a special song, I'd love to work with it.'
  
  So we did it over the course of a couple days in Columbus which was awesome. I mean Columbus, Ohio is a surprisingly cool city. They have a massive university, tons of stuff to do. We banged it out, the song was already written so as a producer I was able to focus all my energy on helping Tyler paint a landscape for his vision and his lyrics.
  
  We actually finished it in L.A. We rented an old Hammond B3 Leslie organ, and some other kind of old standbys from some reggae production, like a '60s, '70s reggae production and threw that on the song. We finished it up right before the album came out and it's definitely one of my favorites that we did together."
  
• Ricky Reed first met Tyler Joseph in LA. "My first thought was like, 'This guy is really intense, but also hilarious,'" he recalled to ABC Radio.
  
  Twenty One Pilots flew Reed to their hometown of Columbus, Ohio. "It was really the sort of first song that we bonded over," said the producer of "Ride." "We finished it back in LA using a lot of traditional elements of roots reggae... it's a great song."
• Blurryface made history as the first album to have every track certified Gold in the US when "Hometown" became the final song to surpass 500,000 sales.