Editing Palm Trees and Power Lines (section)

===Tracks 1–5===
"She's the Blade" was written when Pagnotta was playing his guitar in his bedroom. He was noodling with a chord progression that he thought was reminiscent of a transcending keyboard part – which he had admiration for [[Elvis Costello]]'s attempts at this, namely on his track "[[Radio Radio]]". Pagnotta began singing melody lines over his chosen progression until he came up with the lyric "She's the blade and you're just paper", with the rest of the song falling into place afterwards. DeSantis visited Pagnotta and the pair worked on guitar parts, one of which eventually became a keyboard part that Rechtshaid would play on the final recording. Early versions of the song included an intro guitar riff but was scrapped in favour of Livingston's [[Counting (music)|count-in]]. Similarly the track used to have a middle section of [[Twelve-bar blues|12-bars]] that Pagnotta referred to as "bad classic rock", which was removed at MacKillop's insistence.<ref name=SCInside/>

"Crying" was written over the course of six months, with Pagnotta only having a guitar riff for the pre-chorus and main chorus for long period of time. He said the bridge section was reminiscent of [[U2]], specifically the use of a [[floor tom]] to keep time, as heard on some U2 songs on their ''[[War (U2 album)|War]]'' (1983) album. He added a guitar solo to the track, three days prior to it being mixed. Though Pagnotta disliked it, MacKillop kept it in the final mix. Cullen is singing harmonies on the song; during the recording of this, and since he felt the ending was too sparse, Pagnotta came up with a lyric for the song's outro.<ref name=SCInside/> "Memory" was first song finished for the album, dating at least a year prior to when they recorded it.<ref name=TWCinterview/> Pagnotta wrote it about a person he met while touring in [[Boston, Massachusetts]]. During this time he had just gotten out of a relationship and was cautious about starting another. He began daydreaming about how a relationship with the person from Boston wouldn't work. He then picked up his guitar and started strumming chords, writing what would ultimately become "Memory".<ref name=SCInside/>

Pagnotta kept "Worst December" a secret for sometime, he reasoned that as the lyrics were "a bit confessional in regards to a relationship", he worried that his partner would find the lyric sheet and they'd "have to confront our issues."<ref name=SCInside/> The music of the track was influenced by Bright Life, a band from the group's hometown, who Pagnotta applauded for the usage of [[open chord]]s in their material. Livingston keeps time in the song using the edge of his [[Tom-tom drum|tom]], resulting in a clock-like ticking sound which gave the track "a nice ambient space."<ref name=SCInside/> It ties into one of the two lyrical themes (space), with the other about being away from home.<ref name=SCInside/> "Back to California", which had a similar structure to "[[Stay Together for the Kids]]" by Blink-182,<ref name=OMHreview/> was written about returning home from touring solely to break up with a partner.<ref name=BV/> When Pagnotta showed the track to Livingston, the pair started talking about [[Jimmy Eat World]]'s use of hand percussion, which found its way into the song's intro. It featured several stacked vocal parts and [[Call and response (music)|call-and-response]] harmonies during the chorus, which Pagnotta heard when listening to [[The Carpenters|Carpenters]] albums during his childhood.<ref name=SCInside/>