I guess it’s sort of my musical equivalent of saying things in the heat of the moment, and word-vomiting. It was my reaction to being told that my life is going to be boring, and lonely, and rubbish, and that I was a weak person if I didn’t stay in a relationship. So yeah, I was very insulted, and wrote [“Rolling in the Deep”] as a sort of ‘fuck you’.

In 2018, NPR ranked this as the #20 greatest song by a female or nonbinary artist in the 21st century, saying:

Few contemporary artists can captivate a flock as far-flung as Adele, but there was a time before the mononym became the monolith of pop. Before ‘Hello’ or ‘Someone Like You,’ ‘Rolling in the Deep,’ the leadoff track of 2011’s 21, solidified the Brit’s status, ultimately spending seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Despite its ubiquity, the smoldering sendoff got prominent play on Triple A and Adult Contemporary formats alike, ensuring that Adele would come to occupy the CD slots of cars across the country forevermore.