Songwriter Colin Meloy wrote, “‘All I Want Is You is a love song. An unapologetic, wear-it-on-its-sleeve love song. I don’t write a ton of those, at least not in this vein. The song grew out of the finger picking pattern — “Don’t want pretty poses…” — and I just followed that lead. In the end, it just kind of wrote itself. It’s so bare bones, it lived for a long time in my songwriting notebook, kind of in hiding, before I got up the courage to put it out there. It shares a title and hook with many songs that have come before it, but I like to think I’m merely adding my own take to that tradition.”