Songfacts®:

• In this song, Usher confesses his infidelity, letting his girl know he's got a chick on the side. Not only that, every time he was in LA, he was with his ex-girlfriend. And all those times he said he was working... yeah, he was busy cheating on her.
  
  Why is he spilling it now? Carrying all those lies around is stressing him out.
• This song first appeared as a 1:15 interlude leading into the track "Confessions, Pt. 2" on Usher's Confessions album. On later releases, the full song (running 4:20) replaced the interlude version.
  
  "Confessions, Pt. 2" finds Usher digging an even deeper hole, explaining that he got his side chick pregnant. That song was released as a single and was a huge hit, going to #1 in America. In the video, the interlude version of "Confessions" serves as the lead-in.
• The song was written and produced by Jermaine Dupri and Bryan Michael Cox. The song was titled "All Bad," but on the album was renamed "Confessions" to follow the theme.
  
  In an Instagram Live, Dupri told the story: "I did the track first, and then everybody that was around us, I just kept hearing these stories about being 'all bad.' That's something Skeeter Rock used to say: 'You all bad.' It was a phrase about having extra girls, having all this on the side.
  
  I came came up with the hook and me and Bryan Michael Cox were going back and forth. We got the hook and the hook is crazy. But then I caught a writer's block. I think it's because I was paranoid because we were doing the record in LA. We were worried that if we take the Usher record to LA, we'd have the wrong vibe. I think that was in my head. I felt pressure, like I wasn't going to write something good while we were there. So I took the CD and I got in the car. As I was driving down Melrose I'm listening to the music and I'm writing the lyrics as I'm driving. I'm just singing along with the track.
  
  'Every time I was in LA,' that's the first line that came to me because I was in LA. I was thinking about a girl in Atlanta, and what she would think if I'm in LA doing what I'm doing. Every time she'd call my phone I'd tell her I'm working. So all these scenarios are going by. Then I stopped at the light right in front of the Beverly Center, and I got the line, 'Hand in hand in the Beverly Center not giving a damn who sees me.'
  
  I couldn't record it so I had to memorize it, and by the time I got to the PCH [Pacific Coast Highway], I had memorized the whole song. I woke up the next morning and I remembered it. I was like, 'Yes! I remembered it.' As soon as I got to the studio I laid it down."
• The lyric came from Jermaine Dupri and was inspired by his life, but many assumed Usher was singing to Chilli from TLC, his girlfriend from 2001-2003.