The Last Goodbye

American Idol champion David Cook released this song as the first single from his sophomore album. He co-penned the tune with the prolific songwriter and producer, Ryan Tedder and during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tedder explained why this is different to his old material: "I think a concern that anybody might have with working with me after 'Already Gone,' 'Apologize,' and 'Halo' is that I'm going to give them this huge sweeping ballad. Even on Adam (Lambert)'s last album, I gave him 'Sleepwalker,' but I'm kind of over that. I got sick of it about a year-and-a-half ago and stopped. David was, like, 'I want to do something uptempo,' so his first single, 'The Last Goodbye,' you would never know that I wrote it. It's really emotional and it hits you with the chorus about 40 seconds into the song, so it's just immediate."

Tedder told The Hollywood Reporter how he found Cook as a co-writer: "More than any singer I've worked with, he contributed enormously lyrically and musically – he can play, he knows voicing, chords and arrangements as well as lyrics. He's a full-on writer. I love David, he's a great guy."

The song's music video was directed by Nigel Dick (Britney Spears, Oasis, Nickelback) and shot in May 2011 in Malibu.