High as Hope is album number four. Four is commonly associated with just missing the podium, but this isn't a competition. It was 2018, and, for me, the world was indeed full of some burgeoning hope.
Meanwhile, she holds wilting flowers in her hand, against a wall covered in peeling paint. The green background, offset against a blushy, understated pink dress (more on that later) creates a sense of unease. Her hair is a flame, her voice, a breeze that turns into a storm.
High as Hope is an album I listened to a lot in the shower, when it was first released. I was taking a lot of showers in 2018, as I was weight lifting almost every day, and going for a jog or a run every day. That has has nothing to do with the album proper, which opens with June.
June
Are we talking about the sixth month of the year, are we talking about summer, or winter? It all depends on the locality you find yourself in. Since we see a mention of Chicago in the opening verse, beyond the wind... I feel compelled to see that it is moderate.
The song feels like an urge to relapse. The very literal "I'm so high, I'm so high" ends the song, but there's powerful imagery before that. You were broken-hearted, and the world was too / And I was beginning to lose my grip. This follows with a dissonant chorus insisting that we Hold onto each other, and we all know what 2019 and 2020 would bring to the world. This is a prophetic song. Then we move into true addiction by immediately entering a new phase.
Hunger
This is a song of addiction. And its Friday night and its kicking in / In that pink dress, they're gonna crucify me / Oh and you, in all your vibrant youth / How could anything bad ever happen to you?
This is not only of addiction to substance, but addiction to a rush - there are early references in both songs on this album to Florence struggling as a performer. I thought that love was on the stage; and from June - where she speaks of starting to crack as a show is ending.
There's also something unnerving and sexual about the song and that's the second verse it isn't just about one type of hunger - it is also about the hunger of carnal hedonism that is often associated with substance abuse. Both tracks don't really speak to me personally, but they build a context for the album.
South London Forever
I drive past the place where I was born
And the places that I used to drink
Young and drunk and stumbling in the street
A fever dream of a time in the past, of a student, fumbling through opportunity, freedom, hedonistic bliss and ignorance, at a current state of knowing, oblivious to what the future would / and can bring.
Then, slowly, as the song progresses, more is revealed about the tiny trappings of wisdom found in the tiny world of a university life. At least, that's what this song reminds me of, personally.
And I don't know anything / except that green is so green / and there's a special kind of sadness / that seems to come with spring
I can relate this entirely to the death of my own father, which indeed, did happen in Spring, and I was at university at the time, so I suppose, a little song about love and loss is a piece of mourning for me, far removed from the year in which the event happened.
Big God
Big God was one of the singles from this album. I listened to it a lot, but ... I never really understood it. I understand the minor, slightly de-tuned piano in the background, mournfully plucking away in the bass region, behind Florence's voice. The drumming sounds like the ticking of a clock. Like we're waiting for something.
Sometimes I think it's getting better
And then it gets much worse
Is it just part of the process?
And in comes a waltzing brass section. The lyrics of this song are accessible, and its a song about healing? I think. It does come with a natural conclusion to the UK, as a whole, and to England. Pull down the mountain, drag your cities to the sea / Shower your affection, let it rain on me / Don't leave me on this white cliff.
Everything returns to the sea. It is a common trend in Florence's music, and she brings it back to us in this song. The key theme so far, however, is that this album is very full of air, perhaps more so than lungs, too.
Sky Full of Song
Another one of the singles from the album. We start with just voice, and the slightest tinkle of bells, the type that are attached to incense burners in a Church. Though, this isn't a song about ritual, ceremony, or pomp. It is simple.
This song is a relentless barrage of images, of falling, of gliding above the clouds, of a letter to someone who isn't reading. I can feel your anger / From way across the sea. It is a song that urges a return to Earth, away from lofty ideas. Grab me by my ankles / I've been flying for too long / I couldn't hide from the thunder / In the sky full of song.
Yet, it never has a crescendo or a booming resolution. It is just a matter of fact song about wanting to love, to not lose, to want to be left behind, and of uncertainty in the din of an unfamiliar environment, perhaps drug addled. I thought I was flying / But maybe I'm dying tonight.
There's more imagery than that, too. I turned to the music video at this point, after listening to the song three times, to try and get an understanding a deeper understanding. It starts with Rorschach, revealed, perhaps, to be a bowl in which one is vomiting, or washing their hair. Or bleeding in. The video on its own is incredible and artful, in a minimalistic way.
I don't want to analyse this deeper, or further, but I'll leave that to all of you. You could be anyone. Because the more I try to look at the plants growing in mounds of soil on a timber floor, the more uncomfortable it makes me.
Grace
Minor keys. Piano. Sadness. Apologies. That's how this song opens. Then the mention of going back to get an education, and all the things that were wrong with a past woman, the one singing: I'm sorry I ruined your birthday. There's a real birthday involved too, as this is a song about her sister, Grace.
And of course, of Florence's regret for mistreating a sibling, and the struggle to express that regret. An interview on the album (and this track in particular) speaks of the issues of being able to tell someone they're loved, and to really hear it when (and if) they say it back, beyond the implied exchange.
Patricia
But then who is Patricia? It is Patti Smith. Two songs about two women in a row, on an album about opening up, and acknowledging the past. This one might be the most "active" track so far on the record - and it is a homage to Welch's inspiration as an artist.
Oh Patricia, you've always been my North Star - but that is not where Florence's eyes gaze back at me from the album cover - In a city where reality has long been forgotten / Are you afraid? Cause I'm terrified / But you remind me that it's such a wonderful thing to love
To love the city, or love the fact that we can love at all? This song is a homage, and an eulogy, to a woman who is still very much alive.
100 Years
And straight into woman's suffrage. This is a fantastic song. I say this perhaps, boldly, as a man. This is the sort of song that you can play on repeat, and get a slightly different interpretation each and every time.
For me, the whole song builds to the last verse.
Funerals were held all over the city
The youth bleed in the square
And women raged as old men fumbled and cried
We're sorry, we thought you didn't care, oh,
And how does it feel now you've scratched that itch?
How does it feel?
Pulled out all your stitches
Hubris is a bitch
This song is an anthem, in the lead up to, and in the space that follows that verse, but to me, that last verse compels attention. Florence doesn't use profanity a lot in her music, so when she does, it sort of makes you sit up and play attention. Yes, there's a "fucking" earlier in this album, but hubris is a bitch; is delivered with such precision, spite, and malice, you truly do feel a deep, primordial rage of all the women scorned, through all time.
And it might just be my favourite song on the album so far. And lord, don't let me break this, let me hold you lightly, give me arms to pray with, instead of ones that hold too tightly. Then, return to the title. 100 years. A time period I cannot fathom.
But the last chorus brings the whole song together, as a single unit. It punctuates it. Strongly.
The End of Love
This song opens with ambience. Mellow strings, a drop of a few piano notes, and memories of a place that I've never been - until Florence starts enriching it with words, and quite possibly, the best words. This is a song about, a lot of things. There's several simultaneous narratives going on, all at the same time.
A sense of unease. I feel nervous in a way that can't be named / I dreamt last night of a sign that read, "The End of Love" followed by a fourth wall breaking And I remember thinking / Even in my dreaming, it was a good line for a song.
Then there's the flood in New York. Of A flood. The water, again, of letting the river in - and shifting perspective, let the river rush in / not wash away, wash away. Then there's references to a grandmother's suicide. In a moment of joy and fury I threw myself / from the balcony like my grandmother so many years before me.
Then suddenly, we're in a biblical imagery. Joshua, descending the mountain. Then snapping back to reality - an admission of love, and then silence. This is likely one of my favourite Florence and the Machine songs, because of its diversity of lyrics - the fact that Florence directly addresses her obsession with watery metaphor, and the beautiful delivery - soaring head voice, soft piano, and in the end, silence.
No Choir
This song will be played at my funeral, I hope. That is a bold claim and statement, but this is one of my favourite songs. It is reflective, quiet, beautiful. It is also selfish, in a way, with the density of its meaning, and the way it changes your mood from somber to hopeful, to potentially wracked with tears.
It is poignant, powerful, and you simply must. Listen. And listen carefully. I shall not reproduce any of the lyrics here, with the exception of two lines, by which I strive to live my life:
And if tomorrow it's all over
At least we had it for a moment
So sit with this, and consider that.
Make the most of everything.
Conclusions
The last three songs are what carry this album to its place in my heart. Were it not for them, I would wager this album would not be for me. It is redeemed, however, very much so, by Dance Fever, which I am very much looking forward to doing a deep dive on next.
BANGERS:
No Choir
The End of Love
100 Years.