Songfacts®:

• This S&M-laced ballad about being in a smothering relationship finds Lambert musing that while part of him wants to run away, "I kind of like the pain." The glam singer explained the song's meaning as, "Your playing games with me and it's putting me though it! But I'm addicted to the heartache and drama. I can't get enough."
• Lambert wrote this song with Bonnie McKee, and with the track's producers, Josh Abraham and Oliver Goldstein. In a Songfacts interview with McKee, she said: "'Chokehold' is fun. It's kind of an S&M-tinged song about being addicted to someone and being in a sort of masochistic situation. It's funny because that's a theme that still rings true to me, and on the new album I'm working on, one of the main themes is masochism and exploring why that is a thing for me - why I like the pain, why I like to put myself into stupid situations and keep coming back for more of that. Yeah, that's kind of an ongoing theme for me."