Songfacts®:

• This song's lyrics contain some really violent imagery. Frontman Dan Smith told The Sun that "Blame" is a "gangster-style story inspired by The Godfather."
• Dan Smith expanded on the song's meaning to Radio.com:
  
  "'Blame' is like a super simple snapshot of two gang members, one of whom is pissing the other one off, and it's like that moment before pulling the trigger, and it's the snapshot of that, and it was using imagery from like The Godfather and from American History X to just create this brooding, mean snapshot into these two people's really extreme emotions in this little fictional narrative. So yeah, it totally leans on the familiar within those situations to try and take you as a listener to that place immediately. I think as well just the feel of the song, it's got that mean, dramatic lean to it."