“Migraine” first appeared on the EP, Three Songs, along with “Guns For Hands” and “Ode To Sleep” before it was later released on Vessel, their first major label debut.

Lead singer Tyler Joseph expressed on a track-by-track analysis that the migraine itself is a metaphor. He explains that a headache in general isn’t necessarily the problem, but a migraine is an alarm that is triggered whenever something wrong occurs in your head. He goes on to explain that this song literally is a migraine, an alarm, to let the listener know something is wrong in the world.

Tyler considers “Migraine” as one of his greatest lyrical achievements and spoke about it a 2013 interview with Rock Sound:

I wrote the poetry long before I wrote the music for it. You can psych yourself out when you write the poetry first and then you just fall in love with the way that you said this thing. Then you’re worried about the song part of it that’s going to go with it and you’re very protective of it, almost defending it. I’m really excited that I found the right song for it and it’s one of my favorite ones to deliver live.