Mayer suggested in an interview with the magazine Performing Songwriter that "Gravity" was the song he was always trying to write, using the example of "Come Back to Bed" (from Heavier Things) as being an early attempt at "writing Gravity". Along with "Vultures", the song is one of only two songs featured on the John Mayer Trio's debut album, Try!, that carried over into the release of Continuum. Alicia Keys provides background vocals at the end of the song.

In a concert performed in December 2005, Mayer explained the significance and meaning of the song:

And I just want to say that my full-time job, being—this is true—being a musician is almost a side job to my full-time job of not screwing up. Because the world was devised to be pretty damn even, except for terminal illness, and things that people just absolutely... They're just flukes and they're... You know, I don't know if they're making up for something else way far away that they don't deserve, but it all pretty much evens out.

And if you're gonna do this thing and get paid, and you know, get a car over the phone, if you're gonna do this stuff, something else is gonna happen that is gonna be a temptation to pull you off of it because the people that don't have that going on, they're hoping for that, cause that makes the world even. That makes them even, it makes you even, and where I am now in my life, I’m on a track where as soon as you get in a room, the room is full of things to take you out of the room. "Now that you've made it, here are a plethora of things you can do to not make it. Here are a... Here's the Out door..." and... It's a fill-in-the-blank you know. It's like mad libs. It's like:

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