Mount Everest

Album: Imagination & the Misfit Kid (2019)
Charted: 58
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Songfacts®:

  • At 29,031.7 feet (8848.8 metres), Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level on our planet.

    Labrinth starts off this song by declaring he's "top of the world" and Mount Everest has nothing on him. He continues in the cocky, narcissist vein throughout the rest of the tune, boasting how he doesn't need anybody else, not even answering his phone. However, all of Labrinth's achievements and time spent accumulating his possessions and wealth are ultimately meaningless. "Behind the cracks of the mask you hold up is someone that realizes the truth and wishes to be free," he explained. "You say all these things like you believe them, hoping they could quiet the truthful noise in your mind. And then you finally realize... that all the things you left behind to be at the top of the world were available to you at the beginning. And thus the death of the old you begins."
  • Style-wise, this track unites the jazzy soul of Nina Simone and bluesy rock and roll of Screamin' Jay Hawkins with some Kanye-esque rap. "I love things like that where you can merge different worlds and different eras," Labrinth told Variety.
  • Labrinth released "Mount Everest" as the third single from his Imagination & the Misfit Kid album on June 21, 2019. Two days later, it aired on the second episode of the HBO teen drama series Euphoria. Labrinth composed the show's score in close collaboration with its creator, Sam Levinson.
  • Labrinth isn't the first artist to use Mount Everest as the basis for their bragging. Other songs that reference the towering Himalayan mountain include:

    "Bombs Away by B.O.B. ("So fly, no gravity. So high, Mount Everest").

    "Bodak Yellow" by Cardi B ("Pockets Mount Everest").

    "Guess Again" by Plan B ("We'll take them down instead. Drop 'em on their head from the height of Mount Everest").

    "Wiley Flow" by Stormzy ("Tens and twenties and thousands. I can't never just lowe dem (no). On Mount Everest shoutin'").
  • "Mount Everest" wasn't a hit when Labrinth first released it, but it entered the UK singles charts 33 months later after trending on TikTok.

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