Songfacts®:

• "Demons" is a song by Fatboy Slim, the iconic British big beat artist, featuring Grammy Award-winning soul singer Macy Gray. Released as a single from Slim's 2000 album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, the collaboration was suggested by English electronic music duo The Chemical Brothers, who encouraged him to work with Gray.
  
  In a 2000 interview with CMJ New Music Monthly, Gray explained that the song is about "going to confession, and a preacher giving her ecstasy." She added: "Once in a while a dose of oblivion can be very good for you."
• "Demons" samples the Bill Withers song "I Can't Write Left-Handed." Released in 1973 and later covered by John Legend & the Roots, Withers' original tells the story of a soldier who returns home from the Vietnam War after losing his right arm.
  
  Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, noted that Gray's hook, "All of your demons will wither away/Ecstasy comes and they cannot stay," was inspired by his demo, which he labeled "Withers 1." Reflecting on the recording session, Cook recalled in a 2000 interview with Revolver: "So we get in the studio and she starts singing it, and I just went, 'Oh my God.' It literally took my breath away. And still sometimes when I hear it, there's a couple of notes she hits, and I remember that magic of when she sang it the first time."
• The official music video for "Demons," directed by Garth Jennings, features a surreal narrative where a miniature man tries to rescue a woman from the bionic claws of an organ inside a cathedral. Interspersed throughout are scenes of Gray performing in the same cathedral. In a typical Fatboy Slim touch, he makes a brief cameo in the video, this time appearing as a photograph hanging on the wall inside the organ.
• "Demons" was covered by the acclaimed gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama on their 2005 album Atom Bomb. This version features a guest appearance by Blackalicious rapper Gift of Gab.
• "Demons" was featured in season 1, episode 6 of the Netflix science fiction series Sense8, also titled "Demons." The track plays during a highly charged intimate scene between the show's group of interconnected "sensates."