Nine Inch Nails live personnel Charlie Clouser, Danny Lohner, and Chris Vrenna appear in the video playing string instruments at the beginning of the video. The use of live members in Nine Inch Nails non-performance, concept videos is extremely rare.
The music video references Gustav Klimt's The Kiss (1907-1908) and a "Scanning Machine" designed by Frenchman François Willème in 1860.
The video is widely interpreted as showing Trent Reznor portraying a man mourning the death of a child and detaching himself from reality through the alcoholic drink absinthe.
Trent Reznor referred the music video's production as being "overblown."
The song was written for David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway. It was featured as the first track on the soundtrack and was the lead single for the film, propelling its soundtrack to minor success.