The 2019-2020 Australian Bushfire Season, referred to as the Black Summer, was one of the most catastrophic environmental events in Australian history. From its start in June until the spring of 2020, the fires burned millions of acres of land leading to the death or displacement of three billion animals. Alongside this, the Black Summer took numerous homes and farms, as well as the lives of thirty-three people. 2019 was Australia’s driest year on record, and paired with intense heat, these were perfect conditions for massive, powerful bushfires. When it was all done, researchers found that the fires had significantly damaged the ozone layer, and statistics showed that one in ten children affected were Indigenous.
In the wake of the fires and disgusted by the inaction of politicians and world leaders in the face of climate change, Stu wrote “If Not Now, Then When?” "After [that] shit started to feel dire. It still feels dire — more dire. We need actual, real, tangible action from our leaders, otherwise what are they there for? Why are we not doing everything we humanly can to right our wrongs? When we’re literally on fire, why not now? If not now, then when? This song is part of a larger idea, a thread and a collection of narratives that extend through all of our music. Exploring themes of climate destruction and what that might look like, is an important exploration for us. A window of what reality could be, if we fail to take real action.”
The song is a funky microtonal tune with a loud, distorted intro that ties L.W. to its sister album K.G.. Stu sings about the state of the world (environmentally and otherwise) through a variety of statements like “when the ocean’s coming up” and “when my phone is spying me,” followed by the call of action heard in its title. The chorus declares an emergency for the state of the world and says that we need to start working on things now before they get much worse.

Based on a social media post, we know that “If Not Now, Then When” was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the song itself was recorded in lockdown. The creation of the song was documented on the Tape Notes Podcast. In episode sixty-four, Stu plays a very rough acoustic demo of the song’s melody (the only demo for the song that exists according to him) and said: “In my mind, I thought there was a song in that and usually I would have been excited and come to the band, or at least Cavs, the drummer, and said ‘let’s jam this idea, like I’ve got this idea’ and we’d spend time workshopping it until, that kind of thing. But this time I couldn’t do that. It was just like, I had this idea and these kinds of sounds and textures and stuff in my head and it was just kind of about, like, putting it together in a way that I felt comfortable to give it to the other guys to share. Because I can’t pass that around. It’s like ‘what the fuck is that dude?’”
From there the loose clavinet part came into being as well as a drum machine. Stu then pieced together the melody from the guitar demo onto keys. Around this stage, he showed it to the band who then began to add parts such as Cavs’ drums, which were double-tracked. These were laid on top of the drum machine heard before. The song’s large intro is based on two heavily distorted acoustic guitar parts. Unlike typical Gizzard songs, there is only one vocal track on the song, which was compiled using various takes by Stu. There’s also very little bass in the track, as the tune was left “open” by Stu. The final studio version of the song features Ambrose (harmonica), Cavs (drums), Cook (synthesizer/vibraphone), Lucas (bass) and Stu (guitar/drums/vocals/clavinet/Wurlitzer/keyboard/sitar/percussion/synthesizer). It was recorded by Stu and Cavs with the final mix done by Stu alone.