“…Burning the pain and getting rid of it and demolishing it…and its sort of like a liberating song because you know when you break up and the other person who you’ve left or who has left you knows how much you love them and they try and make your life hell and make it so that you can never get over them by constantly being in touch…its kind of like that and its about taking it into your own hands and just saying go away f*** off” (Adele)
“Setting fire to the rain, for me is about doing the impossible. I believe that when she was leaving this manipulative person, she was still in love with him and therefore breaking it off was as powerful and as hard as setting fire to the rain.
The fire continued to burn and destroy the relationship while she cried and mourned the loss. The main theme of the song, as I see it, is the powerful conflict of leaving a person that is bad for you while you still love them.
In the end of the song she admits that it is over but she is still longing for the man she left… But again she repeats the chorus to finalize her decision to be brave enough to face something, to confront it and to walk away from it.” (Anonymous)
No wonder she won 6 Grammys.