[9] Along with the announcement of I Knew You When on September 22, 2017, a cover version of Lou Reed's "Busload of Faith" was released as the first single taken from the album.

Seger recorded his version of the song at a studio session in Nashville during May 2017 and premiered it with his Silver Bullet Band at a concert in Cincinnati on September 21, 2017, as part of his Runaway Train tour.

[8] A number of Seger's own compositions for the album were written and originally recorded many years or even decades ago but remained unreleased at the time.

The oldest one is the uptempo rock song "Runaway Train", which was first recorded in 1993 for Seger's fifteenth studio album, 1995's It's a Mystery.

[10][12] The anthem-like "Forward into the Past", a song in the vein of Seger's "American Storm" or "Even Now", is from 1999 and was once to be the title track of his sixteenth studio album, while the ballad "Something More" is from 2001.