The album was recorded at Trent Reznor's Nothing Studios in New Orleans, using the latest and greatest in digital technology, including Pro Tools editing equipment. Reznor played most of the instruments, with guest musicians dropping by every now and then. With Pro Tools, Trent and engineer Alan Moulder were able to record lots of stuff and then mix and match as they saw fit. To create the percussion sounds on this song, they did a lot of experimenting with drums, rigging a drum kit to trigger a synthesizer in order to create a hybrid sound. They also gathered boxes, bottles, and some glass that they put into the bass drum. These various percussion sounds were recorded and turned into a loop for the basis of the track.
This is one of 23 tracks on The Fragile, which tell a story known only to Reznor. An earlier track is called "The Frail," which uses elements similar to the title track. While "The Fragile" finds Reznor singing to a girl and offering to look after her ("I won't let you fall apart"), it's part of a bigger picture which Trent later explained was his way of working out his issues with addiction.
Reznor was in the midst of struggling with alcohol and cocaine addiction during the recording The Fragile. "My brain [was] not working at its best, and I [was] scared," he remembered during an episode of the Song Exploder podcast. "So that record took forever, that was two-and-a-half years working on that album, because of fear. I wasn't embracing the process of creating, I was trying to get through it."
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