Songfacts®:

• Adele first started dating charity entrepreneur Simon Konecki in 2011, then gave birth to their son the following year. The couple married in 2018, but separated several months later, sending Adele into a deep depression. She spent the next year as a stay-at-home mother as she struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. This song takes place the first time Adele went out with some girlfriends once her mental issues waned.
• The song captures Adele's interior conflicts as she starts to date again following the breakdown of her marriage.
  
  Wish that I would let you break my walls
  But I'm still spinning out of control from the fall
  
  Adele didn't feel ready to open herself up to someone else.
• The thought of socializing and flirting with men she'd never met before terrified Adele.
  
  This is trouble, but it feels right
  Teetering on the edge of Heaven and Hell
  Is a battle that I cannot fight
  
  The song takes place in LA, where many of the single men are after casual sex rather than a proper relationship. "I wasn't ready to start dating anyway," Adele told Audacy's Julia, "but I was scared that if I did, that I would probably make some really bad decisions because I wasn't ready."
• Adele had a hard time adjusting to being back on the market after being in a relationship for nearly a decade.
  
  I know that it's wrong
  But I want to have fun
  
  The first time a man flirted with her, she snapped back, "Do you mind? I'm married," she told Audacy. Her friends had to remind the singer she's not married anymore, to which she responded, "Oh s--t. OK, oh my God."
• Producer Greg Kurstin supports Adele's lyrics with a full-bodied R&B production that includes thumping bass drum, Hammond organ, and handclaps. Aside from Chris Dave's drumming, Kurstin played all the instruments.
• Adele released this as the second single from 30. She initially planned on making "I Drink Wine" the follow-up to "Easy On Me." The singer changed tack after "Oh My God" went to #2 in the UK and #5 in the US in November 2021 when she released it as an album track.
• Director Sam Brown made a black-and-white video to accompany this song. Brown also created the clip for Adele's smash hit "Rolling In The Deep," which won a Grammy for best short-form music video.