In an interview with MTV, Nickelback's lead singer Chad Kroeger said that he wrote the song about his old girlfriend Jodi, with whom he had a rather dysfunctional relationship. He kept the lyrics very ambiguous, however, which accounts for much of the song's success, as many people could relate to an ex who started pointing out all of your faults at the same time and caused considerable heartbreak: "This time I'm mistaken, for handing you a heart worth breaking." Silver Side Up was Nickelback's third album, and many of the songs were about relationships and personal issues.
Kroeger brought the song to the band a week before recording the album, thinking of it as a possible last-minute addition. The band finished the song in about 10 minutes and knew they had something special. This was a contrast to most of the album's material, which was written even before their previous album, The State (2000).
This was a huge surprise hit for Nickelback's record company, Roadrunner Records, which was expecting Slipknot to provide their commercial success for 2001. Instead, it was Nickelback. The album was released on September 11, 2001. This was the first single and most popular song, resulting in many listeners associating the song with remembrances of the tragedies of that day.
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