While Good's lyrics on Lights remain socio-political and personal in nature, the album marks a departure from his rock-driven style, with layered arrangements and instrumentation featuring horns, strings, woodwinds, and piano—a reflection of Good's musical upbringing and tastes, listening to big bands from Glenn Miller to Count Basie, as well as modern jazz, such as Miles Davis and Mingus.

Good also singled out the horn section on Simon and Garfunkel's "Keep the Customer Satisfied" as a particular influence for the album's fifth track, "Zero Orchestra".

The musical style marked an effort from Good and Livesey to create something that was not necessarily "commercially viable", an idea that the two first discussed when they were mixing 1997's Underdogs.

[5] Good and Livesey first experimented with a Vancouver-based group of musicians to play the horns on the album but described the results as "horrifying".

They subsequently contacted Nashville-based Terry Townson, whom they ultimately stuck with, on the advice of the Odds' Craig Northey.