While Zoey's ability to hear people's thoughts through song is made up, Mary Steenburgen, who plays Zoey's mother, does have a condition where she hears everything as music. Since she woke up from minor arm surgery around 2009, she said everything from other people talking, to things she reads, to her own thoughts, and even the "background noise" of her head as sounding musical.
The series is set in San Francisco. However, only select scenes from the pilot episode were shot in San Francisco. The remainder of the series has been filmed in Vancouver and Richmond in British Columbia.
Mitch Clarke (Peter Gallagher) has PSP, a disease affecting show creator Austin Winsberg's Father.
Lauren Graham was simultaneously shooting the second season of this series and the first of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (2021) during the coronavirus pandemic. When one of her Mighty Ducks costars tested positive for COVID-19, Graham found herself stuck in isolation and written out of this show.
A popular misconception has been that actress and singer Mandy Moore serves as a producer on the series, when she does not and the producer just so happens to share the same first and last name.