While "We Shall All Be Healed" focused on Darnielle's years as a teenager involved with other methamphetamine users, "The Sunset Tree" focuses on his childhood, and a recurring theme is domestic violence. The album title refers to a scene in Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh" in which the character Theobald beats his son Ernest for being unable to pronounce a hard C when singing a hymn. The hymn, "The Tyrolese Evening Hymn," begins with the lines "Come, come, come, Come to the sunset tree."