Fleet Foxes songwriter Robin Pecknold revealed to Rolling Stone that his songs are "written from personal experience,” including “Hymnal,” which was about a time when his friends ditched him in middle school. The lyrics might have been about childhood past, but the melody came from a familiar source — namely, Walt Disney. “The idea was a song like “Whistle While You Work,” from Snow White, you know?” Pecknold said. “So it started with that very beginning thing, the first kind of like, melody. And then once the verse was done, it just seemed like it lent itself to the repetition, you know?”