Welcome to Love Week, a week-long, mini package of features dedicated to all things romantic in music and culture. We've curated playlists of our favorite love (and anti-love) songs, dug deep into legendary sex anthems, and created instructionals on how to write a proper love letter. Whether you're coupled up or single, let us help you get into the mood.

Peaches was making sense of a new life when she started piecing together “Fuck The Pain Away,” her defiant, patriarchy-smashing calling card. Living in Toronto in 2000, Peaches was in her early 30s and single for the first time in a decade while also having recently survived a bout of thyroid cancer. Energized with a desire to seize the life she’d been presented with, and finding herself isolated as friends moved out of the city, she focused her energy on writing songs that underlined her sense of self worth.

“I was on a path where I needed to start my whole life again and didn’t have the option to move away,” the legendary 58-year-old artist says as she casts her mind back. “I was very focused. I didn't think of it as healing in a way but as a way for me to grow.”

25 years later — with its fuzzy bass gurgles and percussion that clatters off Peaches’ deadpan delivery of the line “Sucking on my titties like you wanted me” — a song born from Peaches’ quest to expose societal hypocrisies by being as in your face as possible now rings out as a salute to the spirit of finding unity, understanding, and love inside and as part of a wider community. A song as unabashed as “Fuck The Pain Away” was always going to act as a line in the sand: progressives one side and prudes the other. But as time has passed and (some) attitudes have changed for the better, the song has become less of a confrontation and more of a celebration — and undeniably one of the most ground-breaking and exciting love songs of all time.

Speaking ahead of the song’s 25 year anniversary (it was first released in September 2000) Peaches explains the true DIY spirit of the song, being inspired by Pat Benatar, and how an episode of South Park perfectly captured its message.

See where Peaches’ “Fuck The Pain Away” ranked in our 100 best songs about sex.

The FADER: What do you remember of that night in Toronto when you recorded “Fuck The Pain Away” live on stage?

Peaches: I was doing a very small show opening for another artist at the Rivoli. There were like 10 people there and I had my Roland GROOVEBOX, which was the machine that I wrote my first two albums on. I’d write all my songs on that in parts. I decided to play “Fuck The Pain Away” first in the set that night. I hadn’t written anything down at that point but I knew what my lyrics were going to be. I just kind of improvised it. I didn’t know what I was doing… Some of the gaps are a little longer than others because I couldn’t find the buttons on the machine.

How did you come to release that version of the song?

So the sound woman at the venue, Marlin, said, “I made a cassette tape of your song. If you give me five Canadian dollars, you can have the cassette.” So I took the cassette and listened to it and listened to that first song and just thought, “h, this sounds cool. I'll put it on a demo tape.”

I would play the demo for people, musicians mostly, and everybody would say they loved that song. Nobody commented on the quality of the recording or anything. Across the board, people were just like, this is a cool song. So I thought, “a vibe's a vibe, and this is a vibe.” I'm never going to record it again and this is how I'm going to put it on the album.

What do you kind of remember of those days in Toronto? Were you kind of an outlier in that era? Or were there a group of similarly minded musicians you would surround yourself with?

There wasn't really anybody doing what I was doing there. I was put on singer-songwriter nights because they didn't know where to put me. There was no electronic scene. Some people were doing some house music, but that's not my lane either.

Where did you find the conviction to keep going if you were working in relative isolation?

I just felt it. I was very interested in Daft Punk's first album, Atari Teenage Riot, and old Riot Grrrl stuff mixed with old rock like The Runaways of the Stooges. So I was just trying to mix them all together in a sound that I wanted to hear and with lyrics that I hadn't heard yet. The people would start asking me, “Have you heard of Chicks on Speed? Have you heard of Miss Kitten? Have you heard of Le Tigre?” I hadn’t heard any of them and then my mind was blown.

Do you remember the early reactions to “Fuck The Pain Away” when you were playing it live?

People were really moved by what I was doing, in both directions. I saw such confusion on people's faces or like anger. And then I saw so much love and so much understanding that it motivated me to keep writing songs to get out the energy. I could tell it was doing something. That, in turn, motivated me to be more in your face and more performative in a very unique way that was not happening at the time.

I read you once said that the Pat Benatar song, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” was an influence on the lyrics to “Fuck The Pain Away.” Is that true?

I remember listening to that song on a plane and the line, “You're a real tough cookie with a long history of breaking little hearts like you wanted me” standing out. That isn’t even the actual lyrics to the song but my interpretation of it stuck with me. I wanted to try and bring it forward. Not necessarily to the next level but to a fresh level, you know? That’s how I ended up with “Sucking on my titties like you wanted me”

“Fuck The Pain Away” has a reputation for being quite explicit but, as you have said in the past, that’s quite a gendered idea. Men have been singing explicitly about sex for generations without reproach.

All I was thinking was, “How can people accept things like this as standard when men say it and when women say it it becomes vulgar or disgusting?” That was a revelation to me. I felt that was so unfair. But I didn't pay any attention. It kind of fueled me, if anything.

How do you feel when you see new generations of female artists able to express themselves more freely in the modern world?

Listen to [Doechii song] “Nissan Altima.” “Wake up, a-cup Getcha tits sucked In my makeup, face fuck.” In one line she encapsulates everything I have ever said and it’s one of her biggest songs. That’s a huge, huge hit. It’s a different time now. I used to have to write whole songs about sucking on titties and she has it all in the first five lines of her song.

Does any part of you kind of feel almost envious that there is this expression of freedom now that you weren’t able to benefit from in the same way?

Not at all. I am thrilled. I am absolutely over the moon that I get to listen to music that I want to listen to and sing along with and hear great art and great poetry. Artists like Doechii, GloRilla, Megan Thee Stallion… they all understand humor and their own power. I’m so here for that progression.

Do you think “Fuck The Pain Away” is a funny song?

Yes! There is always a little bit of humor in my music. Not Weird Al comedy music but a little humor always helps with the pain. I find that if something makes you smile while you're in pain then you know that there's a way out. You mentioned my early shows a moment ago. I remember people’s reactions being, like, “This is intense, what is this?” But then a little bit of humor makes them smile and they realize, this is life.

“Fuck The Pain Away” was written from a low point as you slowly overcame a period of ill health and getting over a break-up. Did you write the song with that same sense of a new chapter in your life beginning?

I was just head down working. Smoking a lot of weed and having sexual freedom again after being with one partner for a long time. He was a great guy, I learned a lot from him, but after him was also a great time of learning and just living my life.

You were in your early 30s when you made the song which is by no means old but perhaps a little older than you expect an emerging artist to be. Did that have a galvanizing effect on you?

I was definitely aware of my age and actually I give a nod to that in the song. I reference both Chrissie Hynde and Blondie who gained success after 30. So when I say “Callin' me all the time like Blondie, Check out my Chrissie behind,” that’s a nod to those women. So I was aware of it, but I wasn’t desperate or anything.

Some of the lyrics also reference female contraception and education. Does the song have an added relevancy in 2025 when women’s rights have been rolled back and are increasingly under threat?

With those lines (“SIS IUD, stay in school 'cause it's the best”) I was poking fun at the preachiness of these adverts you’d get telling kids to stay in school while at the same time you’d hear stories about babies being born with IUDs in their hands. It’s like, the message isn’t working.

[As for 2025]... We are all going through this and if we can find any sort of relief then I commend that. The song is certainly vague enough, but direct enough in a way that I can see how it still makes people feel [the same way it did].

One of the reasons the song has lived on for 25 years is that it is regularly used in TV and movies. Are there any examples that you feel are particularly inspired or moving?

The one that sticks out is Sex Education. Everything they do on that show about understanding the spectrum of sexuality is so bang on so it was incredible to hear my music in the center of that episode.

My favorite use of “Fuck The Pain Away,” though, was from the South Park episode, “Butters’ Bottom Bitch.” I love South Park. They're so smart and dumb at the same time. The episode is about a cop who was trying to bust a pornography ring that didn't really exist. This cop was clearly playing out his fantasy of cross-dressing and being a gay sex worker through the guise of trying to bring the group down. It culminates in a frat house with him jumping out of a cake during a party and the song that he jumps out of the cake is “Fuck the Pain Away.” That was the pinnacle for me. It just says everything. It's perfect.