Songfacts®:

• This is the lead single from Shinedown's fifth album. Vocalist Brent Smith told Billboard magazine: "'Cut The Cord' is a wake up call reminding us all that we can control our own destiny by finding the courage and tenacity to destroy whatever it is that's holding us back. The process may not be pretty or perfect or even easy, but absolutely necessary. The song is brutally honest and unapologetic, which is what Shinedown has always been."
• The song's music video was directed by Darren Doane, who previously worked with Shinedown on their clips for "Devour", "Sound of Madness" and "If You Only Knew." "We really wanted the video to match the intensity of the song," Smith said. "We've worked with Darren Doane on several of our videos so there's a real trust between us and it only took a few takes. Honestly, I don't think we could have done too many more - we gave it everything we had, literally playing so hard that it physically hurt."
• The cord that Shinedown frontman Brent Smith was trying to cut was addiction. He got clean when they recorded their 2012 album Amaryllis, but didn't stay that way.
  
  "I relapsed," he told Louder Sound. "It was bad. The band rallied around me, like, 'You gotta get your s--t together, man,' and 'Cut The Cord' was the first song I wrote."