The song was composed by American country singer-songwriters Jon Randall and Jessi Alexander and presented to Bonnie Tyler and her manager when they visited Nashville in 2011 searching for new material from music publishers.
"He said yes," Tyler explained during an interview about the album, "so we [recorded the song in] his studio in his house in Nashville.
After recording the song, Tyler played it to a friend who compared her and Gill's voices to a combination of rocks and honey, which inspired the name of the album.
"What You Need from Me" was later released as the second track on the CD single of "This Is Gonna Hurt" on August 16, 2013.
Norbert Schiegel of G+J Entertainment Media described the song as "sensational,"[4] and Dirk Neuhaus of Country Rock Magazine called it a "fantastic track,"[5] while Adam Carroll from Seen It Heard It thought that the song was one of the weakest tracks from Rocks and Honey, describing Tyler's voice as "rough and beaten" and that her and Vince Gill's voices do not go well together.