songs, including "She Floats", in which their vocals were edited to make it sound as if a forty-member choir were singing. "White Houses" was the first song Carlton and Jenkins wrote together, and Lindsey Buckingham of the band Fleetwood Mac played acoustic guitar on the track after Jenkins met Buckingham, who was recording in the same building (The Record Plant, Los Angeles), and invited him to listen to the song. Carlton said the process of Buckingham writing and recording the riff "happened very fast, and turned out amazing". Several other guest musicians worked on the album. Pharrell of the production duo The Neptunes, who were working with Good Charlotte, contributed backing vocals to "Who's to Say". Two of the three drummers on the album were Abe Laboriel Jr., who played on Be Not Nobody, and Bryan "Brain" Mantia ("She Floats"), formerly of the band Primus. Third Eye Blind guitarists Tony Fredianelli ("San Francisco") and Arion Salazar also appear, as does former Red Hot Chili Peppers member Jesse Tobias. Carlton said she wanted to record a duet with Fleetwood Mac lead singer Stevie Nicks but never got the chance; they did, however, collaborate on a song on Carlton's third album, Heroes & Thieves (2007). She said "there was nothing calculated about the collaborations [on the album], nothing corporate". A documentary, Pleased to Meet You, highlighted the process of recording the album and is included on an enhanced CD. Carlton said she thought it would "shed a lot of light the direction that I am going in and where I come from", mentioning that its working title was Pleased to Meet You: Vanessa Carlton, the New American Goth. Composition Carlton said the album includes darker themes than those present on Be Not Nobody. She said she was past the "diary stage" of songwriting, in which "you're kind of mostly narcissistic and dealing with yourself", and that as one grows up they "start to absorb [the] environment in a different way"; she called the album a reflection of a "different" and "more womanly" perspective of the world, as opposed to the "innocent and girlish" quality of Be Not Nobody. However, she has said that although "things get a bit heavier as you get older", she still has a "lightness of youth" and is "able to be as girlie in ways that I should be." She referred to the album as "bittersweet" rather than