Songfacts®:

• During this sax-fuelled stomper, Jack Antonoff talks about the challenges of processing grief and heartbreak. The Bleachers main man had the title circulating in his head for years after experiencing a loss. He fell into a dark place, then started to feel angry, which was when he saw some light at the end of the tunnel.
  
  The Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey producer explained to Apple Music he "was able to access this rage by talking about other people: my dad, my friends and their kids, the world, and a whole new generation of people that are inheriting so much crap."
• Bleachers recorded the song while the pandemic had halted touring, playing it like they may never play again. At that point, it took on another meaning as Antonoff sings in the buoyant chorus about moving on from the garbage he'd been carrying around. "Found myself banging at the door of the next phase of my life," he said, "and to open brings up all the darkness from the past and what's holding you back."
• Antonoff has worked with Lana Del Rey extensively, producing 2019's Norman F---ing Rockwell and 2021's Chemtrails Over The Country Club. She co-wrote his track "Don't Go Dark" and provides backing vocals on "Secret Life." Antonoff's affectionate nickname for Del Rey is Jimmy, which he references in this song's first verse.
  
  Well, Jimmy's on the road tonight
  She doesn't recognize her country
• Antonoff wrote and produced the song with Patrik Berger, known for his work with Robyn and Charli XCX.
• Bleachers recorded the song for their third album, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, releasing it as a single on May 18, 2021. The album title comes from a lyric on this song's bridge:
  
  But if we take the sadness
  Out of Saturday night
  I wonder what we'll be left with
  Anything worth the fight?
  
  Antonoff echoes the lyric on another track, "Chinatown."
  
  Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme that big red light
  And take the sadness out of Saturday night
• St. Vincent joins in as a background vocalist. Antonoff produced her fifth studio album, Masseduction, winning with St. Vincent a Grammy Award for writing the title track.
• Bleachers debuted "Stop Making This Hurt" on the May 26, 2021 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
• Carlotta Kohl directed the video, which sees Antonoff dancing around a small-town US diner. She filmed the clip at the old-school Bendix Diner in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.