Months after completing the recording sessions for her debut album, Sill was touring as an opening act and reeling from the end of a “dramatic affair” with fellow songwriter JD Souther.
“I was so excited when I was writin’ that song,” Sill said in 1972, “because it was not only the best thing I’d ever written, and I knew it, but it took the weight off my heart and turned it into somethin’ else, and I was able to forgive the guy for the horrible romantic bummer he'd put me on.
Then she played it for me.”[2] The song was orchestrated by Don Bagley and Bob Harris and produced by Graham Nash,[4] with a production designed for radio airplay.
Crowe has described the song as “the black-sheep stepbrother of ‘Bridge over Troubled Water.’”[5] The Frida Hyvönen cover closed the Letterkenny season 6 episode "Dyck's Slip Out."
Cass Elliot's recording of the song is played over the end credits of the Outer Range season 1 finale, episode 8 “The West”.