Songfacts®:

• The title track of Little Big Town's sixth album, the quartet knew they were going to name the record after this tune way on into the recording process. "That song is really kind of tongue-in-cheek — 'be the person that numbs my pain,'" Karen Fairchild told Rolling Stone Country. "We started talking about tying that thread through the whole record, to ease your pain. Don't we want the whole record to do that for people, anyway? Whether it's a sad moment, or a song that's more thoughtful and has a lot more substance in the lyric, we want music to take us away. Pain Killer fits, that's the common thread through all the songs."
• The song's Roger Pistile-directed music video was filmed at the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands, where the Painkiller drink was invented.
  
  The clip shows the Little Big Town quartet singing underwater. "We've done so much over the years, it's hard to find something new that we've never done before, and this we've never done before. We've never sang all glammed up under water," said the band's Kimberly Schlapman. "It is a little more difficult. The hardest part is staying underwater instead of poppin' up and floatin'. That was the biggest challenge."
  
  Karen Fairchild added: "Especially when you have on full gowns in the water. You might not be able to tell that, but…Kimberly and I had on like full gowns and then we got into the water. Roger Pistole did such a great job. He's a great, creative director."
• Little Big Town's Phillip Sweet said of the song: "It's not what you think it would sound like when you hear the word 'pain killer.' You think, 'Oh, this is going to be like a ballad or a heart wrenching country song,' but it's so not that. It's amazingly fun."
  
  "Every time I hear it, it just puts me in the right mood. It puts me in the – it's basically a love song. It's about how much you love that other person in your life and they are your pain killer."