Hate

"Hate" is a song from Lita Ford's eighth studio album, Living Like A Runaway, the seventh song to chart from the album on Jessica's Top 40. "Hate" continued Lita's record-extending era as it became her 11th overall #1, 10th consecutive and seventh from the album.

May 19, 2013, the date that the seventh chart entry from Lita Ford's Living Like A Runaway album charted, marked exactly 11 months to the day of the album's release. At that point, the album spawned six #1s including Jessica's Top 40's second biggest hit of all time, "Living Like A Runaway", Lita established herself as my chart's biggest artist of all time, and the era's success helped Lita break numerous records that date back to my chart's beginnings, most notably Madonna's record for most #1 hits. The album's success showed no signs of fading coming up on the one-year anniversary of its release.

"Hate", the album's second track, became the seventh to reach the top 40. As a personal favorite from the album, especially helped by when I saw her perform it live in Ormond Beach, Florida in October 2012, "Hate" charting late in the era proved surprising. The song is noted for its heavy riffs and groove metal-influenced bass; the lyrics tell the story of an antisocial young man who grows up to commit a mass murder.

Lita has said she started writing "Hate" in the 1980s, and in an interview said it was considered for her 1991 album Dangerous Curves: "We started writing the verse, but didn't have a chorus. I loved it so much. I love the lyric and I love the direction that its going in. But it got to the point that we didn't need it because the album was done, so we shelved it." She rediscovered the lyrics written at the time during the recording of Living Like A Runaway and said she was inspired by real life events such as the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, particularly, wondering what kind of person would do something like that. She further stated she believed the song needed "a powerful soundtrack to go along with it" in order to make the song stand out.

In the same interview, Lita admitted the song's "all attitude" feel was difficult to accomplish: "It's all attitude, which was really, really hard to do. It doesn't sound like it, but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things and that was one of them. That's such a heavy duty statement."

"Hate" was one of my favorite songs on Living Like A Runaway upon first listen to the album, but of the album's 12 songs, it was the seventh to chart. It debuted May 19, 2013, exactly 11 months after the album's release, and quickly scaled up the chart, hitting #1 the week of July 7. As expected, it extended Lita's record-smashing #1 count and hit streak from the album, further cementing the album as a JT40 classic.