This song is about a character in the book Sarah by J.T. LeRoy. The book is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy who was sexually abused as a child, and used the name Cherry Vanilla. Shirley Manson of Garbage befriended J.T. LeRoy and became one of his supporters, but in 2005 an article in New York magazine revealed that J.T. LeRoy was actually a middle-aged woman named Laura Albert. Pulling off one of the great literary hoaxes in history, Albert had her friend Savannah Knoop portray LeRoy in public.

In a 2009 post on Gearslutz.com, drummer and producer Butch Vig said: "we slowed the track down so it gave Shirley's voice a crazy 'helium' effect at normal speed. I recorded the verses through a wah wah that I pushed up and down by hand, cuz I couldn't get the timing down with my foot. And it's not a guitar, the primary sound is a sped up tuba sample. I think we added a guitar underneath it."

The track was certified gold in Australia, where it was a Top 10 hit for five consecutive weeks.

The music video, directed by Joseph Kahn, was shot in a loft in Brooklyn, New York. Special effects make the band invisible in the clip, only being seen in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

Shirley Manson, famous for her red locks, debuted a new platinum blonde hairstyle for the promo, which concerned Kahn, who thought fans might not like the idea. As for Manson, she hated the video from the beginning: "We were quite literally blackmailed by our record company into making a video that we knew from the storyboard was a shockingly bad idea," she revealed to Hunger TV. "We fought so hard not to do it, but we didn’t hold enough cards, and so were forced to capitulate."