Songfacts®:

• A bootleg firecracker is illegal one, likely to blow up in your hand if you're not careful. In the song, it's a metaphor for a risky relationship that will either be a dazzling display or lead to ruin.
• Middle Kids lead singer Hannah Joy wrote this song with the group's multi-instrumentalist Tim Fitz, who is also her husband. In a Songfacts interview with Fitz, he told the story behind it: "This was an interesting process. Hannah had this uptempo song with the same chorus melody but lots of different lyrics. We slowed it down to make this kind of dreamy, country, acoustic ballad and came up with the idea of the firecracker as an image of love. We just had a chorus when we arrived at the studio, and Hannah wrote the verse lyrics on the day. I remember we wanted to make the song conversational."
• According to Hannah Joy, the firecracker in this song is an image for "energy and connection and intimacy."
  
  "Sometimes I think it's easy to count yourself out when you feel like you're too deficient or not good enough or attractive enough, but that intimacy and that connection is for anybody who is willing to take a risk," she told Triple J. "We often put out bids for love or connection, and when it's met it's really beautiful but sometimes it's not and it's very painful."
• "Bootleg Firecracker" was the first single from the third Middle Kids album, Faith Crisis Pt 1. Hannah Joy's lyrics have always been rather introspective, but for this album they're on themes of uncertainty as we make our way through difficult times.
• Middle Kids used real fireworks in the single-shot video, which come in when Hannah Joy gets to the chorus. Directed by Toby Morris, it was shot at a farm outside of Sydney. They spent about $5000 on the fireworks, enough for two takes. The second take was the winner.
• The band put out a call to fans asking them to send in videos of their backyard fireworks celebrations. They got hundreds of submissions, some of which they mixed into the end of the song.