diff --git a/synapse/storage/schema/delta/56/current_state_events_membership.sql b/synapse/storage/schema/delta/56/current_state_events_membership.sql
index ec7ad5bae21e619cdfdd066b54b74b6fddc277a2..b2e08cd85dcbd66ca52cfc8986dc75e804fbe2df 100644
--- a/synapse/storage/schema/delta/56/current_state_events_membership.sql
+++ b/synapse/storage/schema/delta/56/current_state_events_membership.sql
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@
 -- We add membership to current state so that we don't need to join against
 -- room_memberships, which can be surprisingly costly (we do such queries
 -- very frequently).
+-- This will be null for non-membership events and the content.membership key
+-- for membership events. (Will also be null for membership events until the
+-- background update job has finished).
 ALTER TABLE current_state_events ADD membership TEXT;
 
 INSERT INTO background_updates (update_name, progress_json) VALUES