"Driftwood" is the second single from Travis' second album, The Man Who. It became their biggest UK hit single up to that point. The title reputedly comes from the advice of a close friend of singer Fran Healy advising him not to leave college to concentrate on the band. The lyrics focus on a character who has abandoned all his connections and is now like driftwood - "breaking into pieces... hollow and of no use, waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you".

Healy has said: "Driftwood is a song for the person in your life who has so much potential and, yet, doesn't use it because they're afraid of falling on their backside, you know, they're afraid of making a fool of themselves. But, yet, if they put their minds to it and just threw their plate out the window, they would actually do a lot with it and make themselves happy and other people happy."

Healy also stated on VH1 Storytellers in 2000 that he had been watching a Cheers episode that involved somebody overhearing their boss stating that they were going to get rid of the "driftwood" in the company. Healy later went to do the washing up and had thought of the first line in the chorus then.

In this interview, Healy also spoke of the line "pillars turn to butter." The original idea was "caterpillars turn to butterflies", but it was too long to fit with the tune, so he shaved off syllables, leaving it as "pillars turn to butter."