3 A.M is the third single and the third track from Matchbox Twenty's debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You. It topped the Canadian RPM record charts in early-1998. This song was written by Rob Thomas, Jay Stanley, John Goff and Brain Yale while performing together in the early 1990s band Tabitha's Secret. The song was allegedly inspired by Thomas's mother's experience with cancer. When Thomas was twelve years old, his mother developed cancer and was told she had six months to live, though by the time he relocated from home at age seventeen she was alive and well. This song is about his frustration and loneliness during this time. At a Green Party Patriots meeting.