Fear and Loathing

Album: Electra Heart (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Temperamentally prone to emotional highs and lows, Marina Diamandis found her initial exposure to fame as Marina and the Diamonds difficult to deal with. In a blog post she stated that she felt like an imposter, "in the world of pop" and wished she was "back in my room in 2007 making CDs in peace, not having people say 'oh you're not very successful'."

    "I just wanted to divorce myself," she admitted to The Independent. "I was so tired. I'm either on top of the world or I just think everything has gone down the tubes. It's so easy to pick on the bad things because you're so nervous about it working out – you want it so badly."

    This song is a clarion call, in which she proclaims, "Don't want to live in fear and loathing/ I want to feel like I am floating." It is Diamandis' attempt to break away from her chains and finally enjoy being Marina and the Diamonds. "I just didn't want to be sad any more," she told The Independent.
  • Marina explained the song's meaning in publicity materials: "About seeing the good in people, making a fresh start and cutting yourself free of old ideals."
  • The song is titled after the Hunter S. Thompson book of the same name.

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