The story about a homeless woman wearing newspaper as underwear is based on a real thing experienced by Terence Winter on the subway, where a passenger was a similar homeless woman.
According to Ariel Kiley who played the victimized Bada Bing stripper, Tracee, many viewers were so offended by this episode's violence that they canceled their HBO subscriptions, a fact she didn't mind saying she was proud of, since demonstrating offensive violence was precisely the intent of her and her fellow actors on the show.
Ariel Kiley (Tracee), was actually 19 years old during the filming and release of this episode
The song played throughout the episode and over the ending credits is "Living on a Thin Line" by The Kinks.
As a result of the excessive amounts of violence in this episode, it was classified "18" in the UK, and banned in Kuwait.