Songfacts®:

• Both this raw, piano-driven ballad and "You Ain't Here to Kiss Me" were inspired by the end of the same relationship.
• Brett Young explained during a story-behind-the-song video performance of "Mercy" that he set out to hurt people's feelings - but in the best way.
  
  "I think it's one of those things where you'd pull up in your driveway and (the song) gets you emotional and what you want to do is turn it off but you can't so you stay in your driveway and have a cry by yourself," Young said. "I hope that's that song for everybody."
  
  "Hurt is hurt. Time is time. Space is space," he added. "Getting over lost love and mending a broken heart is a very fragile process and it requires space from the person that hurt you. When that person is casual about the process and lingers around your life after the break up, it's inconsiderate and selfish."
• Young said "Mercy" connects with men and women because "breakups aren't gender specific."
  
  "In everyone's life, there will be more failed relationships than ones that work," he explained. "It doesn't matter which side of this situation you've been on, it's easy to connect to."
• Brett Young once thought "Mercy" was too painful to include on his eponymous debut album.
• Brett Young told Taste of Country how the ex that inspired "Mercy" kept torturing his heart by coming back into his life in subtle ways.
  
  "I think everybody knows that feeling," Young said. "Like 'If you're not calling me because you want to get back together, then quit calling me.'"
• The song's music video was directed by Seth Kupersmith. It was filmed over the course of two days in Encino, California and at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Brett Young's love interest is actress Tiffany Brouwer, whose other credits include The Help, Star Trek Continues and How I Met Your Mother.
  
  The visual's dreamlike concept stems from the idea of a relationship that appears stable on the outside, but behind the scenes is a different story. "It's pretty much the same story that the song tells, but with a little bit of an image attached to it," Young said of the clip. "It's a very haunting and all too familiar story."
  
• Brett Young sings from the perspective of someone whose wounds from an impending breakup are accentuated by the anticipation of the inevitable heartache when the split occurs.
  
  "Breakups are uneven," Young explained to Taste of Country of the "Mercy" lyrics. "So the person that was ready for it, prepared for it, is doing fine immediately after it. That person's the one checking in to want to have coffee two weeks later and you're getting that text going, 'Can you just leave me alone so I can heal?' I've been through that."