It was written and produced by the eponymous lead singer and Tyler Bates and was first released when it appeared in Keanu Reeves's 2014 film John Wick.
The song was one of the final tracks recorded for The Pale Emperor,[1] and its composition was inspired by the PTSD exhibited by Manson's father, Hugh Warner, after his time spent serving in the US military during the Vietnam War.
[2] Shortly after the death of his mother in 2014, Manson and his father spent an evening watching Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now and smoking marijuana.
[3] Hugh Warner characterized the film as "the most accurate portrayal of the Vietnam War", and spent the evening describing events which Manson had "never heard before, in my whole childhood".
[7] The track has been described as a "slow burner",[8] and "atmospheric",[9] and has been favorably compared to some of the band's previous album openers, including "GodEatGod" from Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2001) and "If I Was Your Vampire" from Eat Me, Drink Me (2007).
According to Bates, the four expressed an interest in also featuring The Pale Emperor album track "Warship My Wreck" in the film, but that "via osmosis, there wasn't really an appropriate place for that song".
[16] Jonathan Barkan from Bloody Disgusting said that the song begins the album with "a southern grit-infused industrial groove", and said that the drums "elicit an almost militaristic rhythm, giving weight to the almost genocidal lyrics".