Songfacts®:

• Machine Head teamed up with Killswitch Engage singer Jesse Leach for this blistering track. The death of George Floyd and the wave of protest that sprang up in its wake served as inspiration for its lyrics.
  
  Beating after beating
  Throat choked under knee
  Help me please
  
  Machine Head frontman Rob Flynn wrote and sang the lyrics on May 27, 2020, the day that the four officers involved in the killing of George Floyd were (originally) not charged with anything. He recalled: "This day was engulfed in protests and riots across America. I drove into Oakland, past large demonstrations already happening and in a fury wrote down everything I was feeling after watching the horrific footage. Within hours, what I wanted to say, what I needed to say had been recorded in the song."
• Flynn recorded the vocals over an instrumental track that the band had made back in December 2018. He'd already been in contact with Leach to provide guest vocals on it. "I had been speaking with Jesse for maybe six months about singing on the song, as it always had a little bit of a Killswitch vibe to me," Flynn said. "Unfortunately - or fortunately - our schedules hadn't lined up, but with the subsequent lockdown from coronavirus, we had time to make it work."
  
  After the killing of George Floyd, Flynn sent Leach the lyrics he'd written, and the Killswitch vocalist replied saying he was "100% on board."
• The single's B-side, "Bulletproof," is another protest song partly inspired by the murder of an unarmed African-American man. In this instance, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot by two white residents while jogging near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia.
• A portion of the proceeds of the two-track single will be donated to the Grassroots Law Project, which is representing Floyd, Arbery and another African-American killed by cops, Breonna Taylor.