Patrick changed the album title from "Gurney" to "The Sun Comes Out Tonight" after feeling so inspired by writing the lyrics of the respective song. The song's guitar riff was inspired by the work of the Deftones. The track "Self-Inflicted" was written in efforts to understand the mindset of a serial killer. He wrote the lyrics through their viewpoint that "society made them do it", with Patrick stating "For example, an event like Columbine, [looking at it as if] the shooters were the victims and that somehow we or society made them do it – that somehow they were the victims. That this was self-inflicted". "Burn It" is about how people hurt or kill themselves when they give up when they cannot come to terms with society and the world around them. "It's Just You" was written about the sense of isolation that comes with alcohol abuse, but that there's hope in recovering as well. Writing the piano ballad "It's My Time" originated from when Patrick was asked to write a song television show, "Justified" on FX; he wrote it "from a person's perspective of them being killed and knowing it", and stated its meant to convey the feeling of being wrongfully convicted of a crime.