"Move Along" was written by Nick Wheeler and Tyson Ritter. Wheeler explained that the song is "n anti-suicide message song about believing in oneself and persevering in the face of problems". According to Wheeler, they wrote the song at a time "hen we were at our wits' end wondering if we were ever going to get to make a second record. Our manager and our guy just kept saying, 'Keep writing, keep writing.' All we knew was, hey, man, we wrote 11 songs and that's all we had to our name when we made the first record." Ritter went on to say, "Thankfully pushed us to our wits' end, because the last two songs we wrote for our second record were 'Move Along' and 'It Ends Tonight', which were both top ten hits. And it actually became pretty easy writing follow-up hits once the juices started flowing."
Reception
Critical reception
The song received mostly positive reviews from music critics. Punknews.org referred to the track as an "excellent song" and "The perfect predecessor as their last single 'Dirty Little Secret'", while About.com reviewed "Move Along" as "another slice of catchy pop-rock this time attached to an uplifting, encouraging message. There is little lyrical depth here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The All-American Rejects will win no awards for innovation with this single. However, for energetic pop-rock radio fare, 'Move Along' nicely fills the bill". Contactmusic.com were negative towards the song, saying "'Move Along' unfortunately lacks any originality, it sounds like so many other songs released in the past five years or so. They are a poor man's Green Day—even after listening to the song a few times, it still sounds the same; it doesn't seem to get any better", while Entertainment Weekly commented "The title track launches the band beyond frivolous puppy-love-powered pop. The grinding guitars, pulsing drums, and arena-ready rawk refrain turn 'Move Along' into an anthemic gem that, while seemingly still about girls, is truly something special."
The music video for "Move Along" was directed by Marc Webb and shot in December 2005 in Los Angeles and was released a month later on January 18, 2006. It revolves around the lead singer and bass guitarist Tyson Ritter, standing absent-mindedly going through a series of personal problems as the scene jump-cuts quickly with him standing in the same position while wearing various kinds of clothes and in different locations. The quick-cut style of the video was inspired by Marlowe Gregorio, who created a video tribute to the song and posted it on YouTube before production on the official video began.
"Move Along" is used in the films She's the Man, The Hitcher, Firehouse Dog and Over Her Dead Body; the video game Rock Band; the American television seriesOne Tree Hill, Last Laugh, WWE Diva Search, WWE SmackDown and American Idol; and commercials for Lego Bionicle's Inika toy sets, Ford, Digi Music Unlimited Music and various short commercials for shows on Cartoon Network. The song is also used during the transitions of the radio show Wall Street JournalThis Morning and in the US Navy's VAW-113 Black Eagles Squadron YouTube video which involved the entire squadron lip-syncing to the song. "Move Along" was also used during the transitions of CBC Television's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics and was played at President Barack Obama's Grant Park rally in 2008. The song was even used in the promo for Bionicle Toa Inikia.
