Songfacts®:

• Over an elastic bassline and syncopated handclaps, Dua Lipa sings of riding into outer space with her lover.
  
  If you wanna run away with me, I know a galaxy
  And I can take you for a ride
  
  Dua Lipa's songs are often upbeat musically, but with downbeat lyrics about romantic difficulties ("Don't Start Now," "Break My Heart"). However, "Levitating" is an all-round euphoric jam.
  
  "It's about having fun and meeting someone and falling in love and thinking, 'You've probably met me at the perfect time, let's just go for it," Dua Lipa explained to Apple Music. "It's the feeling when love makes you feel like you're levitating. It's otherworldly."
• Dua Lipa wrote the song with Katy Perry and Camila Cabello collaborator Sarah Hudson, and with Clarence Coffee Jr. of The Monsters and The Strangerz production and songwriting team. The same people also penned her "Physical" single along with Jason Evigan.
• Production is courtesy of:
  
  Stephen "Koz' Kozmeniuk, who previously collaborated with Lipa on "Hotter Than Hell" and "IDGAF."
  
  Stuart Price, who has worked with Madonna, The Pet Shop Boys and The Killers.
• The song clocks in at 103 BMP, the same heart-thumpin' rhythm as the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive." Dua Lipa told the BBC this was the track that helped shape the Future Nostalga album and they got "so excited" in the studio that the recording session became a spontaneous party. "We ate so many doughnuts that we were literally levitating because we were so high on sugar," she said.
• The song finds Lipa trying her hand at faux-rapping reminiscent of Blondie's 1981 song "Rapture."
  
  "Things get quite Daft Punk-y here, but it's playful, and the middle eight is almost like my British version of Blondie's rapping," she told Apple Music about the track. "I felt like I needed to get my British side across as well on this record, because sometimes people don't actually know where I'm from."
• Dua Lipa planned to accompany the single release of "Levitating" with a "fun" club remix by DJ/producer The Blessed Madonna (not to be confused with the iconic singer).
  
  Madonna (this time we are referencing the Queen of Pop) heavily influenced Future Nostalga and Stuart Price, who co-produced her 10th studio album Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) also helmed "Levitating." In late June 2020, Lipa's manager, Ben Mawson, revealed in an interview with Music Week that they were hoping Madonna might want to contribute some vocals. Around the same time, Mawson was also reaching out by email to another of the English songstress' musical heroines, Missy Elliott. Lipa hoped at least one would say yes, but much to her excitement, both the "Vogue" hitmaker and the iconic rapper said that they would like to jump on the remix.
  
  The final version of the remix features Lipa and the actual Madonna frolicking over The Blessed Madonna's upbeat trance production before Missy Elliott steps in with a stylishly naughty verse.
• This marked the first time in 17 years that Missy Elliott and Madonna had worked together. Previously, Missy supplied a guest verse for Madonna's "Into the Hollywood Groove (The Passengerz Mix)," a track from her 2003 Remixed & Revisited album.
• Will Hooper filmed the dreamy video in mid-June 2020 at a London studio. The clip features Dua Lipa and Missy drenched in vivid blues and reds while the English pop princess's real-like boyfriend, Anwar Hadid, portrays her love interest.
• Dua Lipa dropped a second remix on October 2, 2020 featuring DaBaby. Their disco-rap collaboration is accompanied by a Warren Fu-directed video capturing the duo performing in a futuristic spaceship.
  
  Dua Lipa held a contest on TikTok to get animation and make-up ideas (and even dancers) for the clip.
• Rocking a '70s-inspired Valentino Haute Couture tasseled sequin gown, Dua Lipa gave the first televised performance of "Levitating" on the November 20, 2020 episode of BBC's The Graham Norton Show. She sang the song again two days later at the 2020 American Music Awards. Filmed at London's Royal Albert Hall in a custom-built set, Dua Lipa ended her performance by levitating towards the sky with the help of wires through a pulley system.
• Dua Lipa sings the song a cappella in a commercial for Evian called "Drink True." Lipa's performance of the song with no studio effects links with the campaign's celebration of "authenticity, transparency and honesty."
• Lipa sang this at the Grammy Awards in 2021 joined by DaBaby, who performed his hit "Rockstar" in the same segment. Future Nostalgia won for Best Pop Vocal Album at the ceremony.
• It never hit #1, but "Levitating" floated to the top of Billboard's 2021 year-end Hot 100 Songs chart. The song spent 41 weeks of the year in the Hot 100's Top 10, becoming the longest running Top 10 song by a female artist in the chart's history.
  
  Also, on the Billboard Hot 100 dated March 19, 2022, "Levitating" broke the record for the most weeks ever spent on the chart for a song by a woman. It surpassed the 69-week run of LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live" in 1997-98.
• The Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System brought legal action against Lipa, claiming "Levitating" copied their 2017 song "Live Your Life." The part in "Levitating" where Lipa sings "I got you, moonlight, you're my starlight" has a very similar vocal melody.
  
  A few days after Artikal Sound System's legal action, songwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linz brought their own copright lawsuit. They claimed "Levitating" ripped off two of their songs: 1979's "Wiggle And Giggle All Night," which they wrote for Cory Daye, and 1980's "Don Diablo," performed by Miguel Bose.
  
  Attorneys for both Artikal Sound System and Lipa filed a joint motion on June 7, 2023, asking the judge to permanently dismiss the case. The filing came two days after a federal judge cast serious doubt on the lawsuit's allegations.
• Dua Lipa faced another lawsuit in July 2023 when producer Bosko Kante brought legal action against the star. He claimed she used his talk box track in remixed versions without his consent.
• "Levitating" plays during the Lotus Casino scene in the 2024 "We Take a Zebra to Vegas" episode of Disney+'s Percy Jackson and the Olympians.