How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is the third Florence and the Machine album, and it is one that took the production values to another level. The Odyssey is a track by track video production, and it is arranged as such in a way that it could be interpreted as concept album.
The record proper doesn't share the same order. That's sad, but ... forgivable. Thus, they probably should be looked at as different items. Today I look (listen?) to the record.
It opens with a descent into beautiful madness.
Ship to Wreck
I have always loved this song. It has so many meanings. It has such powerful and smooth lyrics that remain relevant and are so properly profound, and to me, at least, dark. It is a song about suffering through one's existence. The upbeat guitar progression defies those lyrics.
Then there is quite possibly the most poignant line in the song (to me)
And don't let the curtain catch you, cause you've been here before.
The chair is an island, darling, you can't touch the floor.
I read this as the turning back point from someone standing on a chair, noose around their neck, about to kick the chair out from below them. The curtain is a reference to the end of a theatrical show, and of course, all life is theatre, as Shakepseare (paraphrased) once mumbled.
Then, of course, the chorus, Did I build a ship to wreck? is somehow hopeful, and a reminder to not waste what we have been given. Other lines in this song are also lovely reminders of our mortality, I can't help but pull the earth around me to make my bed.
Florence is back. Big, powerful, confident and yet somehow still vulnerable.
What Kind of Man
This is a song about a journey. A journey through a relationship, through a literal canyon with a broken limb. It's a song about drinking, too. But not drowning, unless you consider a descent into alcoholism I'd already had a sip / So I'd reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it; but repeated throughout the song, its title, What Kind of Man is a question, asked by various experiences.
Of coming, of going, and of a kiss so intense it somehow spawns a two decade long relationship, with all of its downs. Mostly downs. Florence screams in this song, but it is a controlled scream - not into the void, but at a person.
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
The title track, coming in at the third spot on the record. We finally have a new pace. Slow, gentle guitar, and a more balanced vocal mix, which seems to come from the centre of your own head when you're listening. The slow pace doesn't last.
This feels like it is a song about touring. About going from place to place, perhaps madly in love, or madly lost, while things happen. And meanwhile a man was falling from space / and everyday I wore your face. Perhaps it is even a love letter to the very Earth, moving away from the Oceans which have dominated Florence's writing in the past.
There still sits an uneasy death in this track, So much time on the other side / Waiting for you to wake up / Maybe I'll see you in another life / If this one wasn't enough. Mournful. Or perhaps, the hope of doing it all over again at some point in the future. Majestic brass instruments end the song, and it sounds triumphant, so I don't really know. It is a hard song to penetrate musically.
Queen of Peace
This, I feel, is where the even more-bangery-bangers begin on this album. I love Ship to Wreck because of its imagery, but I love this song because of its poetic storytelling. It starts strong. It is literal. But ... it is romantic, too. Not just on a human scale, but a universal scale. Like the stars chase the sun / Over the glowing hill, I will conquer.
This is a song that then moves into chasing those very globes of light - in terms of running away. It is here that I start to realise that this song writing may be a lot smarter than what I think I am. Maybe I am just running from my feelings on this song, because of the way it starts.
Various Storms & Saints
A dramatic song title for a song about an elaborate heart break. I like exactly two lines in this song, despite the whole thing being beautiful, but that lines are the most motivational ones. Don't make the mountain your enemy / Get out, get up there instead.
Get on with it, no matter how much it hurts along the way. Perhaps pain is just part of the healing process. It is a slow song, but again, it is beautiful. Subtle guitar, with a bit of reverb; and a sense of seething in Welch's voice dominate this track, along with a few random slides along the neck of the guitar. It ... is a song about it being okay to not be okay.
Delilah
This is a great song. It is catchy, and a return to a more upbeat tempo on the album. It is very accessible. It makes you want to dance, even if you can't. It has something everyone can relate to, and it is just so very easy. I adore the line about pulling the pillars down.
The pillars of what? Is something I have always thought... but perhaps the pillars of lucidity. Taking the pills just to pass the time is a hint to this.
It is also a song about that Hebrew, biblical figure, Delilah, and to be watchful of her influence.
Long and Lost
This ... is a beautiful song. Gosh, you're probably sick of me saying this, if you've read this far. A gentle guitar, soft plucking, percussion, and - the impression of a moody journey lived over lifetimes.
It makes me feel like I am going on a journey of my own, and it has a nice personification of the environment. Can the city forgive? I hear its sad song. Ultimately, it is a song about returning to one's roots. But it's too late to come on home / Are all those bridges now old stone?
This song needs more time to linger, and to meander, but it does not. It moves along quickly.
Caught
Caught is one of my favourite songs, of all time. I have probably written about it before. I fucking love this song, so very much. I want it to be played to people, and I want essays to be written about it.
Its the hardest thing I've ever had to / to try and keep from calling you
This is a song about being stuck behind the spectre of a muse, an unrequited romance. The entire lyrical content is brilliant, and hauntingly poetic. Welch's delivery matches that mastery of the language, and the words linger with you, long after she is done singing them.
As if the dream of you, it sleeps too,
but it never slips away
it just gains its strength and digs it hooks
to drag me through the day
For me, this is a quartet of lines that sings of a deep depression, a listlessness that lingers forever, unyielding. An absolute and all encompassing obsession.
Maybe I am projecting my own meanings onto the song, but oh You turn to salt, as I turned around to look at you. Such a powerful image, and I very much interpret this literally. A human, a pillar of salt, then a pile of dust.
Then, we move to mythology. Persephone will have her fill. We've all got to die. Or perhaps it is just our dreams. It doesn't matter, because this song, it does things to me, as it ends, pulled apart against my will.
Followed by some haunting ooh-s and more oohs, it ends. But the album continues. How do you top that?
Third Eye
We return to tribal drums, and a call to arms. Florence becomes a seer, and tells us that we are flesh and blood, deserve love, deserve what we are given (but is that a sinister comeuppance, or a genuine statement?)
This is a song about feeling things for other people, who can't feel them for themselves. I imagine this being a tarot reading, or a fortune told, in song. Elaborately. Rather beautifully, but it feels a little bit out of place on the album.
St Jude
This starts as a song about futility.
Another conversation with no destination
Another battle never won
Each side is a loser
So who cares who fired the gun?
Perhaps not about the futility of war, as one might literally take the first stanza, but it builds to a narrative about a storm on an island, and being comfortable in chaos. It is also, named after a storm, as opposed to an actual Saint - a real storm, who perhaps made people aware, through the destruction they suffered, that perhaps the storm just did one thing, as the song closes: Let loss reveal it - it, being what really matters.
What is left behind. Human life.
Mother
This is a song that I like a lot, but not for its title. It is heavier than the others - it even has cowbell! The chorus is haunting, and has a few variations throughout I belong to the ground now / I want no more than this - but I constantly mishear this as "I want no autumn leaves", and ... while that's wrong - hear me out.
If you're dead, the "fall" has come. You don't need anything more. I guess it is a silly polynomial piece of writing that is sung in such a way to mislead people such as myself into this alternative interpretation.
Once you're in the ground, transformation is over, yet every part of this song has transformation baked into its lyrics. I could go on and on, but so much of that "I wish I was something else" feelings that you get, come back to haunt here and I don't wish to go into too much detail on this for personal reasons.
Hiding
Do you wear a mask? Because... I sure do from time to time, and this is a song about that. Not saying things out loud is just as painful as saying them. This is a song about someone who can see the real you underneath that mask, and slowly, over time, peeling it away, until there is total, mutual surrender.
It is sung in a soothing tone, encouraging you to say stuff. Don't say it to the song, though, say it to someone who will let you in. Please.
Make up Your Mind
Hey, a song about killing someone. :) Unexpected. Well, not really. But with so many references to dropping an axe on someone's neck, guillotines, and references to Hamlet Is it best to sip it slowly / Or drink it down in one?
Fundamentally, it isn't about murder. But it is nice to see it as the murder of a relationship, which is probably what this song is really about. One person wants to go (Welch) - but every time I try to bring it down / you always turn my hand around
It is a good track, but it feels like it could do with a bit more vitriol, and a little less disco (particularly toward the end).
Which Witch
Florence gets to pound on a lot of drums and stamp her foot a lot in this track. It is a tribal, percussive return to the style of Ceremonials, and it feels like it could have been right at home on the previous album.
It is a song about martydom. About the pain of being burnt at the stake of a relationship which just won't work. An overarching theme of the entire album. Not necessarily a relationship with a person, but perhaps with Welch's well documented relationship with alcohol.
It is a powerful end to a powerful album.
Conclusion
This album's best tracks are everywhere, woven throughout it. The video playlist adds another layer of depth to this, with excellent work by Autumn De Wilde. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSSxZ58hOAnBUo9hQ9CeLy2GYP05sX4M6
My version of the album ended with a different version of Third Eye, and the repetition of this song serves well to tie together the album's themes. Brillaint.
BEST TRACKS:
- Ship To Wreck
- Delilah
- Caught
- St Jude
- Mother