Some of the lyrics and themes on "Begin" reflect the current world events and personal experiences happening to the members of the group. "To Claudia on Thursday" was written about Boettcher's wife Claudia who was pregnant at the time. Joey Stec described "It's You" as being about the establishment covering up information ranging from the Vietnam War to the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, specifically noting the lyrics "You only let me see what you have planned for me / I guess they'll never be anything more". Doug Rhodes stated that "It's You" was his personal favourite song on the album. Lee Mallory described "I'm With You" as being written on Easter Sunday in 1966 after going to a love in at Elysian Park in Los Angeles. Mallory developed the chords for "There is Nothing More to Say" while Curt wrote the melody and Michael Fennelly wrote the lyrics. The final song "Anthem (Begin)" was developed by Curt and Doug. Sandy Salisbury described the song "Karmic Dream Sequence #1" as "perhaps the essence of the Millennium experience", by developing music that evokes "feelings from the deepest parts of what we were doing at that time in our lives. We were at once spontaneous in artistic expression and fixed in who we were as individuals." The song's lyrics were written by Boettcher and Lee with Boettcher and Keith Olsen developing the music. The song included a Japanese woman invited by Boettcher to play the koto on the song. Mallory spoke on "Karmic Dream Sequence #1", explaining that it came from a return trip visiting his grandmother for the last time before she had died. He wrote the first and second verse and showed it to Curt who wrote the bridge for it. "5 A.M." came from songwriter Sandy Salisbury who desired to "write a melodic piece about the quite early-morning time" Salisbury drew from his love of bossa nova music for this song, specifically Antônio Carlos Jobim.