The song was born out of anger. Adele wrote it as a response to a former partner and openly presented it as a revenge song, a song of retaliation and reckoning. In Q Magazine she said it was her way of making a statement, that people would hear it and say, “Wow, she ain’t mucking around.” In Spin she put it even more bluntly, saying it was her own “get the fuck out of my house” to an unfaithful guy, instead of sitting there begging him to come back.