By John Custodio

Florence and the Machine (“St. Jude”) has released a new single “King,” lead by the titular Florence Welch who continues her iconic style of hauntingly dramatic vocals. The song was written by Welch and Jack Antanoff, who is known for collaborating with Taylor Swift (“Evermore”), Lorde (“Solar Power”) and a host of other popular artists. 

“King” begins upbeat but melancholic, with Welch sighing her thoughts about having children or continuing her art through the lines, “We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children/About the world ending and the scale of my ambition.” Backed by soft drums and light bass, Welch gently croons her comparisons between manhood and womanhood, singing “You need to go to war to find material to sing” to her invisible lover, gently arguing that women have innumerable amounts of pain to create art about while men have to fight and willingly go to war to create their great works. 

In Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s mildly depressing 2019 show “Fleabag,” Kristen Scott Thomas (“Gosford Park”) makes a similar comparison, saying that “women are born with pain built in … We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t … And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby.” As both Welch and Waller-Bridge are English, it is reasonable to suggest that Welch has seen “Fleabag” and was influenced by the lines. 

Welch continues onto the hook of the song with the refrain of “I am no mother/I am no bridge/I am no king,” realizing her conflicting ideals for her and her life, torn between biology and personality. This is repeated 10 times throughout the song, emphasizing Welch’s cyclical and intrusive thoughts.

Especially powerful lines in Welch’s classical hyper-dramatic style are “I need my golden crown of sorrow/My bloody sword to swing/My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology,” further solidifying her conflict between biological want of motherhood with her “empty halls” at 35 years old. Perhaps Welch sings of self-pity with her “golden crown of sorrow,” as she has made her life off of her self-inspired art with a fortune from her music but still a deep sadness. One side of Welch thinks of herself as both a powerful, near-mythological creature but without substance in the eyes of society, conflicting her “role” as a woman with her power as an artist.

Furthering the theme of motherhood and the end of a usual woman’s career, Welch sings “What strange claws are these/Scratching at my skin?/I never knew my killer would be coming from within.” For many women, there is no blend of career and motherhood. It is the societal expectation for the mother to stay home while the father is the breadwinner, or is expected to do less for the family than the mother. For Welch and many, a life from within would be the end of their career.

The song quiets three minutes in before blasting back with a cacophony from a orchestra of horns, strings and drums accompanied by Welch howling along before ending with “And I was never as good/As I always thought I was/But I knew how to dress it up/I was never satisfied, it never let me go/Just dragged me by my hair/And back on with the show.” Welch’s lyrics could mean her own goals as an artist, with one part of her pressing herself on to create art while another part wants to stop pushing so hard, to stop fighting and just rest.

“King” is an extraordinary work of art that sets the bar extremely high for Florence and the Machine’s fifth studio album, with hauntingly beautiful lyrics and powerful accompaniments. 

Image from florenceandthemachine via YouTube