Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings) by Silversun Pickups

Album: Neck of the Woods (2012)

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This is the lead single off Silversun Pickups' third full-length studio album, Neck of the Woods. The song was released on March 25, 2012 by Dangerbird Records.
Irish producer Garret "Jacknife" Lee who is also known for his work with Snow Patrol, Weezer and R.E.M, produced the song.
The name Silversun Pickups refers to a liquor store across the road LA rock-scene hang Silverlake Lounge. One of the band's friends would often arrive at the store late at night to buy liquor, and would be as such making the "Silversun Pickup."
The song title references the children's truth or dare game. Singer/guitarist Brian Aubert explained its meaning to FMQB: "It's kind of grim," he said, "but it's actually a pretty sweet song. Before we were writing the album, I was getting into a lot of conversations about how people grew up. You're at the bar and you exchange childhood memories-slash-possible traumas: my parents were like this and my parents were like that...

Someone really close to me was telling me about their life early on, and it was heartbreaking and really frustrating. I'm not talking about massively destructive things that happened, but things that were definitely not right.

We were talking about little games that we played and the Bloody Mary game we played when we got scared and my friend essentially said, 'I had no time for those things because I was frightened all the time. I would not have been scared by that game; I would have sat there and been happy.' And that really freaked me out and made me so mad, and want to go back in a time machine to go back and punish those people. And that's where that song came about. So it sounds pretty grim but it's actually sort of sweet. That's how Bloody Mary came in there, with the idea that some of us were doing everything we can to thrill ourselves and scare ourselves, and jolt our nerves. And my friend had too much going on at such a young age for that to even register and I felt sad this person never had that."
Aubert told FMQB that when the song first came out, a lot of people "thought it was about hangovers."

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