Songfacts®:

• This song is about Julian Powell, Soccer Mommy's boyfriend of six years, and the little moments they share that make their relationship work. The first stages of romance are blissful, but to go the distance, you have to learn to live with, and even enjoy, your partner's coffee breath and bouts of drunken stumbling. With cold beer in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer, she and Powell have everything they need. Soccer Mommy describes the song as being about "about the joys of losing yourself in love."
  
  Powell is also Soccer Mommy's guitarist - he's played on all her albums and been on all their tours.
• "Shotgun" is an odd title for a love song, but Soccer Mommy (real name, Sophie Allison - Soccer Mommy was her Twitter handle) often stirs violent imagery into her lyrics as a study in contrast. Here, she says she's "a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound," meaning she's there for her man whenever he needs her. It's symbolic of how love can be explosive and even ugly at times.
• This was the first single from Soccer Mommy's third album, Sometimes, Forever. It was produced by Daniel Lopatin, an electronic music specialist who records as Oneohtrix Point Never. Soccer Mommy, raised in Nashville, is steeped in country music, so the pairing seems incongruent, but he's the one she picked from a list her record company gave her of prospective producers. Much of the album deals with the yin-yang tug of opposites, so it's fitting she would use a producer who comes from a very different musical background.
• The video, directed by Kevin Lombardo, shows Soccer Mommy performing in a replica of her childhood bedroom. When the set changes, she breaks the fourth wall by walking away so we can see the set and the changeover to the next bedroom scene. This could be a commentary on fictional realms we often inhabit, showing just our curated selves to the public. Soccer Mommy stays off social media for the most part and seems genuinely nonplussed by fame.
• Soccer Mommy recorded a version in Simlish, the Sims' bespoke language, for the Sims 4 High School Years expansion pack. There's also a Sims-inspired video that sees a virtual Sophie Allison play guitar and sing "Shotgun" in Simlish.