Patrick Monahan discussing the inspiration[s] for the title character of this song:

You know, Virginia was a bunch of girls that I had met in San Francisco and they were real people, and Virginia was the name that came with that person — I don’t know why. One of the main girls, her name was Amber. My wife’s name is Amber too, but this other girl was dating my original bass player and we were playing softball against a few of the guys from the Counting Crows cause they were a Bay Area band originally too. So my bass player’s girlfriend comes from some like wedding shower, and she’s wearing a really long dress and high heels, and she goes out and plays shortstop and kicks ass. So it was like, she was wearing high heels and exercising and it was just so weird that it had to be written about. So that’s what “Meet Virginia” is about, a bunch of different people.

Do you meet fans all the time that are like, “I’m Virginia!”

Yeah, yeah. Virginia, the first 10 years of our career, every girl that was named Virginia, or Ginny, or whatever version of that name was, would say, “I’m her! You wrote the song about me!” It’s less like that now just because, you know, I think we’ve been a band so long that most of those women are dead. (laughs)

Monahan on the one other important aspect of this song:

What did you do with your first royalty check? How big was it?

The first time I ever got paid was with ”Meet Virginia” [from Train’s 1998 debut album]. I think it was for $30,000. That check paid off all my bills. It was the most liberating moment of my life.