Songfacts®:

• Lights and Sounds is a loose concept album about Yellowcard's experiences living in Los Angeles, a city they grew to hate because of the disingenuous people they encountered on their rise to fame. While writing the songs, the character Holly Wood emerged as a narrator. Frontman Ryan Key explained: "Holly became this person on the record who appears in a lot of the songs, and at times you love her and at times you hate her. At times she's good to you and sometimes she's bad."
• During the making of Lights and Sounds, Yellowcard was dealing with a lot of pressure. They wanted to create a worthy followup to their hit Ocean Avenue that would still allow them to grow as a band. They were also struggling with internal tension that would lead to guitarist Ben Harper's firing. All the while, Key was working to overcome a drug addiction. Sean Mackin, the band's violinist, said writing as Holly was cathartic for Key, as she "was someone he could get all his emotions out through."
• Director Marc Webb told MTV News the music video for "Rough Landing, Holly" was a sequel to "Ocean Avenue." Instead of being chased by bad guys through the streets of LA, Key is pursued by his own demons on a trippy journey into the subconscious. "It's about Ryan being chased by his problems and going through his past and his future to try and get away from them. The whole thing tells a story in a really unconventional way, with lots of really radical transitions," Webb explained. "In one scene, he crawls into a suitcase and comes out in an aquatic world. There's another scene where he falls asleep on a floor and then he wakes up and he's on a table, being operated on."
• This peaked at #27 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.