Songfacts®:

• This is the title song from Los Angeles-born, Nashville-raised singer-songwriter Kesha's debut album. Kesha co-wrote every track on the record, whose frank lyrics highlight her irreverent attitude. "I want my music to be fun, unapologetic, rowdy, quirky, humorous, and interesting," she said, "but with substance behind it. I'm an emotional person underneath all my fronting. I want people to listen to it and feel like they can relate."
• Kesha explained to Seventeen magazine why she titled the record Animal: "I've done research on animals because I'm a diver, and I used to wear gold bikinis and had eye piercings and stuff, and then I almost got eaten by a barracuda once, and I was like 'Why does he keep chasing me? Why does he want to eat me?' And then I was researching and found out that animals are really attracted to shiny things, especially gold and silver, so I feel like if I cover my body and the audience with glitter then they'll like it."
• Kesha explained to Rolling Stone that she chose this as the album's closing track because, "that's where I believe, sonically, the next record might be going." She added: "Me and my brother had a silly punk band before, and I loved pop music and I liked catchy music, but I think I also am possessed to be what some critics might deem as silly pop music. I think I have more s--t to offer, so I think that 'Animal' is a nice segue into the next record, hopefully. I wanted to be very - who were we trying to emulate? - like Flaming Lips-y, Arcade Fire-y."
• Kesha told Rolling Stone about the album title: "I have to say. I named it that because I want people to lose it when they listen to my record and go to the animal part of themselves that they suppress. Society has taught us to suppress certain things and not do certain things."
• Kesha told Digital Spy that this is one of her favorite tracks from Animal as, "it's one of the last songs I wrote for the record and it just embodies everything I think about humans - it's my take on human beings as an animal."