Songfacts®:

• English Alternative Rock band Muse open their sixth studio album The 2nd Law with this song, in which they foresee the collapse of industrial civilization. Matt Bellamy sings of a terrifying scene of mankind losing its supremacy over the Earth as the risen seas and energy shortages create global desperation.
• Muse thought this could be a candidate for the Skyfall Bond theme tune, until they heard that Adele was recording it. Drummer Dom Howard told the BBC: "It's got a little whisper to the Bond vibe - it all goes a bit crazy 'Live and Let Die' in the middle. My view is they should use it for the next James Bond film, but I don't know what's going on with that. I heard Adele was doing it!"
• The themes of The 2nd Law were inspired by a BBC broadcast that Bellamy saw in 2011, where a panelist noted that "The laws of physics say that an economy based on endless growth is unsustainable."
• The song wasn't originally the band's choice to open The 2nd Law. Bassist Chris Wolstenholme explained to Kerrang!: "We thought 'Survival' might be a good opener but with the whole Olympics thing we thought it might be better using something that wasn't already familiar to people. 'The 2nd Law: Unsustainable' was another contender, but in the end we decided 'Supremacy' would be the best choice. There are a lot of experiments on this album, and I think this is one of the few songs where as soon as you hear it you know it's us. It couldn't really be anyone else and I think that's why it works so well."
• Muse opened the 2013 BRIT Awards with a typically epic rendition of this song, involving an orchestra, choir, pyrotechnics and lasers. The band was said to have spent in excess of £300,000 on their performance.